
Qass. 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



/ 












VIECHANICAL SERIES. 




I wield the hammer.— T/ior. 



THE MYSTERY 



OF 



"SHAKSPE ARE" 



REVEALED. 



SIR FRANCIS BACON 



THE REAL AUTHOR. 







'.^ 



MH^M^m^^j^- 



\^ 



\ V 



THE 



MYSTERY 



44 



SHAKSPEAKE" 



REVEALED. 



SIR FRANCIS BACON 



THE REAL AUTHOR. 



A BOOK IN THREE PARTS. 



xllxam ^ienry OTIxurcIter; 

DETROIT, MICH., U. S. A. 

'may 191886 

DETROIT: ^ f 

John F. Eby & Co., Printers, 65 West Congress St. 

1886. 



• Cs 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 
By WILLIAM HENRY CHURCHER, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

ALSO, 

International copyright — i. e., all nations, except the 

Dominion of Canada and Great Britain, are 

at liberty to copy as much as 

pleaseth them. 



TO MY MOTHER, 

gauje Stomas (^hxixcUcv, 

A DESCENDANT OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS, AND FROM 

WHOM I INHERITED AN INSATIABLE DESIRE 

FOR READING, I DEDICATE 

THIS BOOK. 



COINTTEETS. 



Part I. 



Brief review of forepart of Edition of Shakspeare, 1623, and 

of the life and times of Shakspeare and Bacon. Pages 11 to 41 

Part II. 

Comparison of the works of Bacon with this Vokime of 

Plays. ...... Pages 42 to 95 

- Part III. 

Reconsideration and Conclusion. . . . Pages 96 to 111 



IJSTTBODIIOTIOK 



I desire at the outset to assure my readers that this work is 
not by any means intended as a critical essay, but rather as a 
plain statement of facts and the deductions naturally arising 
therefrom, in a common-jDlace manner. Hence, any reason- 
able sins of omission or commission may very properly be 
overlooked. 

On entering upon this work, I have two principal objects in 
view: the first, to discover the truth in regard to the author- 
ship of the works usually ascribed to Shakspeare; and, second, 
to assist in removing the blot now resting, undeservedly, upon 
the name and fame of the immortal Bacon, " whose light shall 
shine" when the well-worn lines of Pope shall have faded 
from the memory of man; the latter and greater object being 
in a measure dependent upon the former. 

To those who habitually neglect to look up citations, I will 
say that those employed will be truthful in letter and spirit; 
and to those who are more painstaking, I shall be obliged if 
they examine all the testimony offered, that they may " know 
whereof we affirm." 

But in confining myself as I do to this edition of " Shak- 
speare" of 1623, and to the acknowledged works of Bacon, 
lest the reader should at first glance conclude that I am calling 
upon them to breakfast^ dine and sup upon Bacori, I have 
endeavored to give them enough " Shakspeare" to act as an 
alterative, and thus, as Mr. Bacon says of a part of his work, 
"I am hopeful that if the first reading move an objection, the 
second will make an answer." 



VIU INTRODUCTION. 

I am persuaded that a careful perusal of the following 
pages will demonstrate that not only this Folio Edition of 
Shakspeare of 1623 was the work of Bacon's hand, and com- 
piled and printed with his knowledge and consent, but that 
he wrote, or caused to be written, the introduction and preface 
to the same, as well as the catalogue of the plays as we find 
them in this edition; and that they were purposely designed 
and arranged to throw the literary world off the scent of the 
true authorship, until such time as the works would be better 
appreciated; which time, I feel persuaded, has fully arrived. 

This view of the case fully coincides Avith the last words of 
Bacon to the world : " For my name and memory I leave to 
men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next 
age." 

And that age is upon us; and it is high time that the world 
was better acquainted with the works, acts and ideas of the 
greatest mind that the world has as yet produced. 

In conducting this inquirj^, I have purposely refrained from 
quoting the opinions of others on the subject of the author- 
ship, and have made but two references in regard to the 
authenticity of this edition, upon which we rely, but have 
rested entirely upon the merits of the volume in question, in 
connection with the acknowledged works of Bacon, for they 
carry the proofs within themselves. 

If I believed in apologies, and were in the habit of making 
them, I might be prompted to offer one for intruding my 
ideas upon the world in this small compass and in such an 
unpolished manner; still, I am hopeful that a careful perusal 
will show that though diminutive in size, it is much in a little. 

But inasmuch as many of our best and greatest writers have 
favored us with technical works on various subjects whose 
luminosity is more or less opaque, and therefore not wholly 
understood by the every-day reader, I thought it not amiss 
for one of the common people to make a small work on this 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

interesting subject, to the end that "that which is hidden 
should be revealed, and that which is crooked be made plain." 

I am well aware that there are many honest persons who 
dislike the idea of saying or doing anything to detract from 
the honor or fame heretofore accorded to anyone, but I doubt 
not that all such will be willing to give honor where honor is 
clearly shown to be due; and as right wrongs no one, they 
will also be willing to give the facts the greatest publicity in 
the common interest of right and justice, without prejudice 
or reproach. 

And now, if my readers become convinced of the truthful- 
ness of the foregoing propositions, and find that the " Shak- 
spearian myth" has been scattered into thin air, they will 
please thank the facts, and cheerfully admit with the author 
hereof, that 

"All's well that ends well." 
A New Year's Gift of Good Will to Men. 
Detroit, Mich., January 1, 1886. 



THE 
^^ TT A Tr O DIT^ A T) P ?? 



MYSTERY OF "SHAKSPEARE 

REVEALED. 



PART I. 

BRIEF REVIEW OF FOREPART OF EDITION OF SHAK- 
SPEARE 1623, AND OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHAK- 
SPEARE AND BACON. 

It is not my purpose to enter npon an extended argu- 
ment, neither do I intend to " enter the lists " as a cham- 
pion, in any sense, but rather to handle this subject after 
the manner of an inquiry, to the end that the truth may be 
brought to light as far as the same has been revealed unto 
me. And if there be any Shakspearian students among my 
readers who have a shrine at which to worship their idol, 
and who are unwilling to have the light admitted suf- 
ficiently to dispel the mists that have been thrown around 
him, let them lay these pages down e'er it is too late. 

But I beg to assure them that no word sliall be used not 
deemed actually necessary in discovering the truth. 

I am painfully aware of the greatness of the task I have 
assigned myself, and of the unworthiness of the hand that 
wields the pen. in view of the fact that " Shakspeare," 
above all other works, has been criticised and commented. 



12 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAKE. 

copied and translated, turned inside out, and upside down, 
by some of the best writers that England — or America — 
has produced, until it would seem at first glance that noth- 
ing more remained to be said that could possibly be entitled 
to the right of claiming originality. 

With all due deference, then, to those who have touched 
upon this subject in times past, I must be permitted to 
affirm that the principal reason why they have failed in dis- 
covering the truth, and also why they so differ among them- 
selves that scarcely any two agree as touching the same 
point, is this, viz : that they have neglected going to the 
fountain head — to the source of the stream that flows so 
majestically through this volume, forming a literary laby- 
rinth, whose intricacies no man hath as yet threaded, and 
whose depths none have fully sounded, and over whose 
closed entrance there is placed this legend, "No admittance, 
except you bring the key." 

The reader will note, as we proceed, that the author of 
this volume is termed " A happy imitator of nature." 
; Mr. Bacon, in his Apothegm No. 20, third collection, 
says : " Nature is a labyrinth, in which the very haste with 
which you move will cause you to lose your way." 

And in No. 161, first collection, he says : " It is in busi- 
ness as it is frequently in ways ; the next way is commonly 
\h.Q foulest I and if a man will go i\\Q fairest way he must 
go somewhat about." 

Therefore, as it is best to begin at the beginning, the 
source of information to which I propose to go is the intro- 
duction and preface of the players' edition of Shakspeare 
— 1623 — the only reliable edition, according to the author- 
ity of Eichard Grant White, of late times, and Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, of last century — good authority, surely. 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 13 

Dr. Johnson says of this edition, "It is equivalent to 
all others ; " and, " I collated them all at the beginning, 
but afterwards used only the first." And this Mr. White 
indorses. This, then, makes this edition the only relia- 
ble one by which to judge of the authorship, for, as this 
volume claims, it is the only one compiled and printed 
entirely from the original MSS. — all others being stolen or 
taken as the plays were produced on the stage, and, there- 
fore, more or less defective ; and, moreover, not indorsed 
by " Shakspeare's play-fellows." This course may, at first 
sight, seem a roundabout way, yet I do but follow Mr. 
Bacon's advice to one who was in haste : " Stay a little, 
and we will make an end the sooner." 

I can imagine you smiling at mention of a preface, for 
who reads them ? Probably not one in a thousand ; and I 
am aware that one of the keenest of English writers — 
Dean Swift — has written a labored preface, to prove that 
a preface is entirely unnecessary and uncalled for. 

But this introduction and preface, being so entirely 
unique in their way, and playing so important a part in this 
drama, that I ask a special consideration of them. 

And right here I wish to observe, that it is too late in 
the day to try the case, for, as it is plainly stated in this 
preface, the trial has been had ; the testimony is all in ; all 
necessary arguments have been made ; the judge has 
charged the jury ; the case is in their hands, and all that 
now remains to be done is to admit a little more light into 
the jury-room — a proper thing to do in any case, as I am 
told! 

My readers, being the jury, must decide for themselves. 

They will observe that this introduction and preface pur- 



li MYSTERY OF SIIAKSPP:ARE. 

port to have been signed by the two " play-fellows" of 
Shakspeare, John Heminge and Henry Condell, 

Observe, too, that these names are not spelled, in either 
case, as 3^011 will lind them in the original ''will" of Shak- 
speare, where he makes a bequest to them, and where we 
might reasonably expect to see them spelled correctly, if 
anywhere. This may seem a small matter, but I mention it 
in order to bar any charge or suspicion of forgery on the 
part of the real author of this volume of plays. 

I here give a copy of the introduction and preface in full, 
and will review them in order; they will prove to be 
remarkable documents. 

THE DEDICATION OF THE PLAYERS, PREFIXED 
TO THE FIRST FOLIO, 1623. 

"7(> the Most Noble and Incomparahle Pair of Brethren^ 
William, Earle of Pemhroke, etc.. etc., and Philip, Earle 
of Monty umery, etc., etc.j 

'-''Both Knights of the Most Nolle Order of the Garter, and 
our Singular Good Lords. 

'^ Right Honourahle, 

" Whilst we studie to be thankful in our particular, for 
the many favours we have received from your L. L., we are 
falne upon the ill fortune to mingle two the most diverse 
things that can bee, feare and rashnesse ; rashnesse in the 
enterprise, and feare of the successe. For, when we valew 
the places your H. H. sustaine, we cannot but know their 
dignity greater than to decend to the reading of these 
trifles ; and, while we name them trifles, we have deprived 
ourselves of the defence of our Dedication. But since your 
L. L. have been pleased to thinke these trifles something 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 15 

heretofore, and have proseqnuted both them, and their 
Author living with so much favor : we hope tliat (they out- 
living him, and he not having the fate common with some 
to be exequutor to his owne writings) you will use the same 
indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. 

" There is a great difference whether any booke choose 
his Patrons or finde them : this hath done both. For, so 
much were j^our L. L. likings of the severall parts, when 
they were acted, as before they were published, the Volume 
ask'd to be yours. 

" We have hut collected theiri, and done an office to the 
dead, to procure his Orphans, Guardians ; without ambition 
of selfe-profit, or fame ; onely to keepe the memory of so 
worthy a Friend and Fellow alive as was our Shakspeare, by 
humble offer of his playes to your most noble patronage. 
Wherein, as we have justly observed, no man to come neere 
your L. L. but with a kind of religious addresse, it hath 
been the hightli of our care, who are the Presenters, to 
make the present worthy of your H. H. by the perfection. 
But there we must also crave our abilities to he considered^ 
my Lords. We cannot go beyond our owne powers. 
Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what 
they have : and many Nations (we have heard) that had not 
gummes and incense, obtained their requests with a leavened 
Cake. It was no fault of theirs to approach their Gods by 
what means they could : And the most, though meanest of 
things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to 
temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly conse- 
crate to your H. H. these remaines of your servant Shak- 
speare ; that what delight is in them may be ever your L. L., 
the reputation his, and the faults ours, if any be committed, 
by a payre so carefull to show their gratitude both to the 
living and the dead, as is 

*' Your Lordshippes most bounden, 

"JOHN HEMINGE, 
"HENRY CONDELL." 



16 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

THE PREFACE OF THE PLAYERS. PREFIXED 
TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITIOJST PUBLISHED 
IN 1623: 

" To the Great Variety of Readers. 

" From the most able to him that can but spell : there 
you are number'd. We had rather you were weighed. 
Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your 
capacities : and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. 
"Well ! it is now publique and you will stand for your 
privilidges wee know ; to read, and censure. Do so, but buy 
it first, that doth best commend a Booke the Stationer sales. 
Then how odde soever your braines be, or your wisdomes, 
make your licence the same and spare not. Judge your 
six-pen'orth, your shilling's worth, your five shillings' worth, 
at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates and 
welcome. But whatsoever you do, Buy. Censure will not 
drive a Trade, or make the Jack go. And though you be 
a Majestrate of wit and sit on the stage at Black-Friers, or 
the Cock-pit, to arraingue Plays dailie, know these Plays 
have had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales ; 
and do now come forth quitted rather hy a decree of Court 
than any purchas' d Letters of commendation. 

" It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have beene 
wished, that the Author himselfe had lived to have set 
forth and overseen his own writings ; But since it hath 
been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from 
that right, we pray you, doe not en vie his Friends, the office 
of their care and paine, to have collected and published 
them as where (before) you were abused with divers stolne, 
and surreptitious copies maimed and deformed, by the 
frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that exposed 
them : even those are now oifer'd to your view cur'd and 
perfect in their limbes ; and all the rest^ absolute in their 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 17 

numbers as he conoeived t/ie: Who, as lie was a happie 
imitator of Nature^ was a most gentle expresser of it. His 
mind and hand went together : and what he thought, he 
uttered with that easinesse that wee have scarce receiiied 
from him a hlot in his papers. But it is not our province, 
who onely gather his works, and give them to you, to praise 
him. 

" It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your 
divers capacities, you will find enough, both to draw and 
hold you: for his to it can no more lie hid., than it could 
he lost. 

" Reade him, therefore ; and again, and again : And if 
then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest 
danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to 
other of his Friends^ whom if you need can be your guides : 
if you need them not, you can leade yourselves, and others. 

" And such readers we wish him. 

" JOHN HEMINGE, 
''HENRIE CONDELL." 

In reviewing these remarkable specimens of literary com- 
position, I will first invite your attention to the introduc- 
tion, or " Dedication," as it is termed. I have italicized 
those portions to which I desire to call special attention, as 
they are the hinges upon which the whole subject turns, — 
the keys that unlock the whole mystery connected with this 
volume. 

It will be observed that these two play-fellows of Shak- 
speare profess, with great show of humility, their unworthi- 
ness, and also, their lack of learning and its accomplish- 
ments, and after continuing in this strain for a short space, 
they gradually and almost imperceptibly trench out in a 
highly dramatic style, betraying an intimate knowledge of 
the manners and customs peculiar to the worship of the 



18 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

ancient deities, and a keen insight into the characteristics 
of mankind in generaL And yet the edge is somewhat 
taken off this by their very innocent declaration, that " So 
we have heard." 

The reader hereof will also note that they denominate 
the works which they profess to have collected as the 
"remains" of Shakspeare. A sequel to this will be fur- 
nished further on in its proper place. And here we will 
leave them for the present, giving them credit for the coun- 
try simplicity which they assume, with such apparent inno- 
cence, while we pay our respects to the address to the dedi- 
cation, to which we ask your special consideration. 

Here are two common players, who address themselves 
to two noble Earls in this very familiar style — William, 
Earl of Pembroke, and Phillip, Earl of Montgumery, a 
"Noble and incomparable pair of brethren." 

Was ever modest simplicity on such familiar terms with 
its betters ? And again, can any one inform us how these 
two noble Earls could be brethren, except in a " Pickwick- 
ian " sense ? 

Now, observe that these two play-fellows express a desire 
to have their work worthy of their highnesses by its per- 
fection ; and then remark very humbly, " But our abilities 
are to be considered, my lords," etc. The supreme drollery 
of all this will be manifest when we come to understand 
clearly who the writer thereof really was, for these two 
" players " are but puppets in the hands of the manager. 

But let us proceed to an examination of the " Preface " 
in its more important points ; and when we shall have done 
80, one key to this mysterious book will be found. 

As in the dedication, these play- fellows begin in a very 
humble manner, but soon display an aptness and a legal 



MTSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 19 

ability not their own, and coolly tell us that these plays 
" Have had their trial, already,-r-stood out all appeals, — and 
have come forth acquitted rather by decree of court than by 
purchased letters of commendation ; " a statement worthy 
the pen of a " limb of the law " rather than of these two 
unlettered boors, as they would have us believe them 
to be. 

Then these " friends," after lamenting that '^ our Shak- 
speare," as they term him, had not lived to have set forth 
and overseen his own writings, they beg not to be envied 
their "care and pains," to have collected and published 
them, " perfect in their limbes and absolute in their num- 
bers as he conceived the." Ah, it is astonishing what 
great things are accomplished in this world by a little dash ! 

Let the reader please note well that these two " friends " 
profess to have collected and published these plays, as they 
came from Shakspeare's hand, free from blot, etc., but in 
reality they do no such thing, but only as he conceived 
the—. And as he conceived the dash, — or minus, — he 
conceived nothing in connection with the works, and conse- 
quently, as they received nothing from him, they can, and 
do, give you nothing ! 

Here, then, we have one key to the Shakspeare mystery ; 
and this ^^ is the little joker that has puzzled the world 
from that day to this ! 

I believe there is no dispute as to the authorship of this 
volume of plays resting between Shakspeare and Bacon. 
Now, when this book was published, in 1623, from the 
original MSS. — and the only one so published entire — Shak- 
speare had been dead seven years ; his family did not have 
the MSS. in their possession, neither were they mentioned 
in his " will ; " and are there any who are so simple as to 



20 MYSTEKY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

believe that these MSS. laid away in some " pigeon-hole " in 
the "green-room" of the theater, or some other out-of-the- 
way place, or in the pockets of some of the players during 
these seven years ? If so, would the MSS. have remained 
" perfect in their limbes and numbers ? " 

Now, when we consider that Bacon is said to have died 
in 1626, three years after this book was published, and that 
from 1621 to '26 he worked hard (see his life), we see that 
he had every opportunity to publish the works as he chose, 
a/nd still retain the MSS., which fact time will disclose. 

His reasons for doing this will be given in their proper 
place. 

We will now explain to the reader how it was utterly 
impossible for one of these "play-fellows" to have any- 
thing to do with the publication of this book. If the 
reader will take the trouble to examine the foot notes to 
the "will" of Shakspeare, they will learn that John 
Heminge had been dead ten years, at the time when liis 
name was supposed to be signed to this preface ! lie died 
in 1613 — the book was published in 1623 — perliaps this 
accounts for the fact that he could not spell his name twice 
alike ! 

It is proper to note here, that Stevens, a student and 
critic of Shakspeare, thought that Ben Jonson may have 
written it. But when we consider that he was an intimate 
friend who said "he loved him this side of idolatry, as 
much as any," we see that it would be absurd for him to 
say that " he conceived the dash," only when he (Jonson) 
really supposed — as far as we yet know — that Shakspeare 
was the author of the plays. Besides, would Jonson have 
been likely to miss the opportunity thus presented, to make 
his name immortal, by signing it to the preface — instead 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 21 

of a dead man's — and thus obtaining an interest in this 
great volume, provided he did write the preface? We 
think not. 

We will now continue our examination of this remark- 
able document, and see if we can discover the hand that 
wrote it. It will be worth the while for the reader to note 
the style of the signature to be found beneath the 
" Chandos portrait " of Shakspeare — the only true picture 
of him — be it remembered. This signature is a fac-simile 
of the truly appalling chirography of him, who has, 
hitlierto, been accredited with the writing of this series of 
unequaled plays, " without blot in his papers," and yet we 
see two blots near the " TF" — which letter seems to be stand- 
ing on its last legs — with first name misspelled — the i a 
left out entirely, and an " e " substituted at the top ! Was 
there ever a greater caricature of a handwriting, that was 
said to be " easy and gentle expression of thought V 

Why, it makes the page look as if some " fretful porcu- 
pine " had turned a summersault upon it ! 

But to continue. These two simple friends have the 
assurance to inform us that if, after we have read him 
" again and again," we do not like him, we are under some 
manifest danger not to understand him." 

Now this danger could not be manifest to the reader^ 
else they would remove it ; consequently the danger of not 
understanding him loas manifest to the writer of this pre- 
face, who had purposely arranged it to mislead you as to 
the true authorship, and, therefore, placed you in danger, 
also, of not understanding this volume, as no one can 
understand it aright, without first becoming familiar witli 
Bacon's acknowledged works. 

These friends continue in this strain : " And so we leave 



22 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

you to other of his friends, whom if you need can be your 
guides." 

Please consider tliis. Here are two professed friends of 
Shakspeare wlio pretend to have the orginal MSS. in their 
possession. Now, if they were not capable of guiding the 
reader to the correct understanding of him, who, in the 
name of reason, or logic, was there who could ? 

But if, as I think I have fully demonstrated, these MSS. 
were in the hands of Bacon, then it is clear that the "other 
friends " alluded to, w^ere none other than the acknowl- 
edged works of Bacon, which will, if examined closely 
with an open eye, as surely guide the reader of Shakspeare 
to a correct understanding of him, as the needle points 
to the pole, aye, and more surely, for, whereas the needle 
does vary from the true northern point, the wand in the 
hand of this sorcerer is ever pointing directly at its 
object ! 

This will be more fully demonstrated as we proceed. 

And does this savor of dissimulation ? Aye, but Mr. 
Bacon has this in his '' Essay on Dissimulation :" 

" Therefore, set it down that a habit of secrecy is both 
politic and moral." And, in regard to dissimulation, " it 
followeth many times upon secrecy, by necessity, so that 
he that will be secret must be a dissembler, in some 
degree." Mr. Bacon, in his life of Julius Caesar, whom he 
considered the great man of all past ages, says of him, that 
though he had the reputation of being an open and sincere 
man, "yet he was a perfect master of dissimulation, and 
wholly made up of art, without leaving anything to nature, 
but what art had proved, and he was perfectly skilled in all 
the ways of men." 

Yet in all this, Mr. Bacon has out-Heroded Herod ! 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 23 

If Plato were rightly called " a greater than an Egyptian 
sorcerer," surely then a greater than Plato is here. For 
this wizard of letters, this juggler of words, this necroman- 
cer of ideas, this grand literary sorcerer is saying to you, 
on every leaf of this volume, and every leaf of his 
acknowledged works, " search my works in connection for 
they do prophesy of me." 

Finally, then, these friends inform us that " his wit can 
no more lie hid than it could be lost, etc.;" this is but 
another manner of telling you that the best wit of the real 
writer of this volume is hid, but that in the nature of 
things it cannot remain so indefinitely, but that some day 
it will be brought to light ; a thing we propose to ourself 
to do, for there is more wit to the square inch in the 
arrangement and illustration of this edition in question 
than can be found in all the libraries of the world. And I 
challenge the world to produce a piece of literary audacity 
equal to what we have shown in this cunningly devised 
preface ! 

These friends conclude their remarkable manifesto in 
this wise : '* If you do understand him, then you can lead 
yourselves and others ; and such readers we wish him." 

And such readers I wish, not only for this volume of 
Plays and Bacon's other works, but for these pages as 
well. 

" But our abilities are to be considered, my Lords." 

I now pass on to the consideration of the salient points 
in the lives and times of Shakspeare and Bacon. 

That Shakspeare is often mentioned, and that his life 
and times are as often misunderstood, or what is worse, 
not studied at all, goes without saying, almost. It is well 



24 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

then, that we give this part of the inquiry some special 
attention. 

From what can be gathered from the statements of his 
friends and admirers, both in his day and since, we arrive 
at the following conclusions : That he came from a plain 
but substantial family of Warwickshire ; that he passed his 
boyhood in his native place much as boys in general do in 
a country town ; that he attended the village school some 
time between the ages of seven and fourteen years — the 
length of attendance not known ; that he was " up to " the 
boyish tricks of his days ; that he left school to aid his 
father in his occupation of butcher and wool dealer ; that 
he married at the age of eighteen ; that he continued in 
his lowly way of life until about the age of twenty-three 
years, when he found that as he was born poor he had 
held his own remarkably well ; and with a growing family 
his prospects were none of the brightest. 

He had in the meantime become addicted to the use of 
ale and other potations, and was a " jolly good fellow " in a 
drinking club, and did his best to "hold his own" in a 
drinking bout in a neighboring village. " The spirit was 
willing, but the flesh was weak" — too weak for the occasion 
— and he with others were laid out to sober off under a 
friendly crab-tree. That some of my readers will sympa- 
thize with him, I feel very certain. 

Finding that his prospects in life were growing less 
brilliant year by year, he determined to seek his fortune 
elsewhere ; and shortly found himself in London without 
means, influential friends, or any great amount of business 
experience — in short, he seemed to drift with the tide of 
humanity until he found himself at the door of the theater, 
penniless. Here his first occupation seems to have been to 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 25 

attend to the horses and equipages of the grandees who 
frequented the play-house ; and it is recorded of him that 
he was in demand in that capacity. From this occupation 
he eventually obtained a place in the theater, in a minor 
capacity, and gradually worked his way upward. 

As to how he obtained this situation, I leave it to Mr. 
Ignatius Donnelly to inform you, as the information is not 
to be found in Life as published by his friends. 

And right here I wish to pause long enough to shake 
hands with Mr. Donnelly across the chasm of non-acquaint- 
ance, and bid him good speed, well assured that he is on 
the road to ultimate success in his investigations, though it 
may prove that the trail he has struck, and which is so 
skillfully laid, is nothing less than " Puck's Girdle," — in 
which case the end of the circle will scarcely be reached 
during this generation ! 

But, that he has succeeded in linking the name of Sir 
Francis Bacon with this volume of plays, in such a manner 
as to leave no reasonable doubt that it was pre-arranged, he 
deserves, and ought to receive, more credit than has, thus 
far, been accorded to him. 

But let us return to our author and his fortunes. Shak- 
speare now passed into the theater, occupying, during a 
series of years, the various positions from scene-shifter to 
stage-manager and part owner. 

He arrived in London about 158T, at the age of twenty- 
three, and left it about 1613, after about twenty-six years 
of theatrical life, when he retired to his country home, and 
to a life almost devoid of interest till the day of his death 
in 1616, at the age of fifty-two years, when most men are 
in the prime of life, and just beginning to reap the harvest 
of their earlier years' activity. Yet it is said of him by one 



26 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

of his admirers that " the anecdotes that are in circulation 
respecting this portion of his life are few and trivial." Yet 
while he was living this retired life, during these three 
years before his death, and while he was thus free from the 
cares of theatrical management, we ought in reason to look 
for some of the results of that wit and wisdom, with the 
possession of -vvhich he has so long been accredited. He 
has left off his boyish tricks ; he has graduated from the 
country school and his home occupations ; has passed 
through the London theater and back to Stratford ; and 
now, if ever, we may expect to find something worthy 
of him, of whom it is written in extreme eulogy : 

" He shook his incumbrances from him as dew-drops from 
the lion's mane." 

But now, before giving the results of my investigations, 
please allow me to ask, is it reasonable to suppose — nay, is 
it possible that the author of this magnificent volume wrote 
" this, and nothing more," before or since, worth the men- 
tion ? 

I have searched the records left us by his friends — he 
has left none of his own — and I give the results as I find 
them. 

After his drinking bout, when he and his chums were 
worsted, he was invited to renew the contest, but he is said 
to have exclaimed : "No, I've had enough ; I've drunk with 

" Pipeing Pepworth, Dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hillbro', Hungry Grafton, 
Drudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford." 

After his deer-stealing escapade, he is said to have indited 
several verses, at the expense of Sir Thomas Lucy, owner of 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 27 

the deer in question, of which the following is a specimen 
— the spelling in all these quotations is by the book : 

'' He said t'was a ryot, his men had been beat, 
His venson was stole, and clandestinely eat ; 
Soe Lucy is Lowsie, as some volke misciall it, 
Synge Lowsie Lucy whatever befall it." 

Again, Mr. Ben Jonson and Mr. William Shakspeare 
being merry at a tavern, Mr. Jonson began making his own 
epitaph in this wise : 

" Here lies Ben Jonson, who was once one — " 

And gave it to Shakspeare to finish, who presently wrote : 

" That while he lived was a slow thing, 
And now being dead is no-thing !" 

The next effort is said to be of a ^' better leer." 

JONSON. 

" If but stage actors^ all the world displays, 
Where shall we lind spectators of their plays ?" 

SHAKSPEARE. 

" Little or much of what we see we do^ 
We are all both actors, and spectators too !" 

A Mr. Combe, a miserly and wealthy man, asked our 
Shakspeare what he would write for his epitaph provided 
he outlived him ; upon which Shakspeare gave him the 
following : 

" Ten-in-the-hundred lies here engraved ; 
T'is a hundred to ten his soul is not saved ; 
If any man ask, who lies in this tomb ? 
Oh, oh, quoth the Devil, t'is my John-a'-Combe !" 

And here is one more. It is said a drunken blacksmith 
reeled up to Shakspeare and inquired : 

" Now, Mr. Shakspeare, tell me if you can, 
The difference between a youth and a young man ?" 



28 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

To which our Shakspeare instantly rejoined : 

" Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple, 
The same difference as between a scolded and coddled 
apple !" 

This, to be sure, ought to make a GTob-tree wince' but so 
much for the wit, I give it for what the reader may think 
it worth. Now here are some epitaphs, said to be his 
handiwork ; they do show a modicum of wisdom. 

Written on the tomb of Sir Thomas Stanley : 

"Aske who lyes here, but do not weepe ; 
He is not dead, he doth but sleepe. 
This stony register is for his bones, 
His fame is more perpetual than these stones ; 
And his own goodness, with himself being gone. 
Shall live, when earthly monument is none." 

On the same tomb : 

" Not monumental stone preserves our fame, 
. Nor Skye aspireing pyramids our name. 
Tiie memory of him for whom this stands. 
Shall outlive marble, and defacers' hands. 
When all to time's consumption shall be given, 
Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." 

The following epitaph for Elias James is also ascribed to 
Shakspeare, as are the others, on the authority of one 
individual : 

" Wlien God was please'd, the world unwilling yet, 
Elias James to Nature payd his debt. 
And here reposeth : as he lived, he dyde ; 
The saying in him strongly verrified, — 
Such life such death : then, the known truth to tell, 
He lived a godly life, and dyde as well." 

— W'tn. Shakspeare. 

Now, the reader is the better judge of the amount of 
wisdom and poetical ability displayed in these epitaphs, be 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 29 

it more or less ; yet it has the merit of variety, bad grammar, 
poor spelling, and worse rhymes ; but if these beggarly, 
half-dozen jests and squibs, which at best may be called 
cute rather than cunning, are specimen results of the " Wit 
Combats" — see Life of Shakspeare — in which he is said to 
have held his own, then, shade of Csesar, what carnage was 
there j and what a vast amount of gore must have been 
spread over the regions round about ! 

I can call to mind but one parallel case in all history ; and 
that is where old Peter Stuyvesant led his valiant hosts of 
Dutchmen against the Swedes, intrenched at Fort Christina, 
on the Delaware. Surely my readers know the results of 
that campaign. If not, take down your Washington Irving 
— good, kind soul, whose greatest anxiety was how to fight 
a battle and have no one hurt — read him, by all means, if 
you haven't already done so ; you will find it a fair illus- 
tration of the situation. 

Let the reader please bear in mind that these quotations 
which I have given above are what the friends and admirers 
of Shakspeare have saved and given to us ; and we may 
take it for granted that they are the best, else they would 
not have been to the trouble of preserving them ; but when 
we come to compare them with the grand thoughts, ideas, 
facts, and gems of wit scattered through this inimitable 
volume of plays, we find that it is like endeavoring to make 
comparison between nothing and everything — the infini- 
tesimally small is swallowed up in the immeasurably great ! 

Now, when we ask our Shaksperian friends what proof 
they have that he was the author of this volume, they first 
say : " Why, of course he was !" and then, that " His two 
friends collected and published his works, from the original 



30 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAKE. 

MSS. Thus, we see, that having possession they claim nine 
poiiits in the law^ and beg the tenth ! 

But we have shown the reader tliat he did not have tlie 
MSS. when this vohime was published, he having been dead 
seven years at that time ; and one of his so-called friends 
having died ten years before, he did notj and the family of 
Shakspeare did not have them, as they did not produce them 
after he died; neither did he mention them in his will ; and 
further, that as I have already shown, from the preface to 
this edition of 1623, they received nothing from hhn^ and 
could therefore gi'ce you nothing ! 

Then, as a last resort, they say that Shakspeare " shook 
his incumbrances from him as dew-drops from the lion's 
mane," and genius came to his rescue. 

Ah, ray readers, there's no such thing as genius. I would 
that my words could reach all English-speaking people. 
They who rely upon genius, rely upon a broken reed — upon 
a substance " thinner than the baseless fabric of a dream." 
What said one of the greatest of military men when one, in 
his presence, alluded to "genius?" He said: "What is 
genius, but an ignominious attention to detail!" 

I think it will be obvious to all who will pause long 
enough to think twice, that no amount of genius can supply 
the learning to be obtained only from study and travel. It 
cannot furnish the results to be found only in experiment. 
It cannot reach conclusions to be arrived at only by com- 
parisons. Then, I beseech you, throw "genius" to the 
winds, and rely upon the faculties with which nature has 
endowed you, aided by your own exertions, and success 
awaits you in proportion. 

Mr. Bacon, in his laudation of Caesar, whom he considers 
to have been the foremost man of all past time, says : " His 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 31 

powers wei'e not the gift of nature or genius^ but the result, 
in most part, of careful thought and study applied during a 
lifetime of activity." 

In concluding this part of the inquiry, there are a few 
prominent points to which I invite special attention. That 
the writer of this volume was a deep experimental philoso- 
pher ; a learned statesman ; a cunning courtier ; a scientific 
experimenter and inventor ; an adept in the use of ancient 
and modern languages ; a learned judge ; a traveler and a 
student of history, and a literary marvel, goes without 
saying. Now, did Shakspeare ever experiment, as far as 
we know ? No, except that it is said of him : " He kill'd 
a calf in high style, and made a speach" — and thereby hangs 
both head and tale, did we but know where to look for 
them ! 

Was he ever employed in high state matters ? No. Did 
he ever travel, until he went to London penniless? No, not 
out of his own county, or its immediate vicinity. Did 
he ever invent anything? Not that we know of. Was he 
a great student of history ? Not in the foreign tongues, for 
he knew little of them. Was he skilled in judicial matters ? 
Hardly ; for, as his admirers inform us, what little he knew 
in the tricks of the law " he must have learned in attending 
to his father's business, collecting bills, and the like." But 
when we reflect that this business experience extended only 
through the time between fourteen and twenty-three years 
of age — nine years — and while he was yet young and inex- 
perienced, the reader can imagine the vast amount of 
judicial lore to be obtained therein. 

Now, let me ask a question that seems very pertinent just 
here. What would a Probate Judge think of a man who 
made his will when in a state of sound mind and bodily 



^1 



32 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

health, but who actually forgot the two principal items — his 
own heir at law, and his own great literary works, if he had 
any ? Yet this is precisely what he did — forgot his wife : 
the bequest to her, " My second-best bed, with the furni- 
ture," being an interlineation. (See published Will of 
Sliakspeare.) And I leave it to the imagination of the 
reader to judge of the extent and munificence of this 
bequest ! 

The " works " he did not allude to in his will. Query — 
why? One other point in this connection seems to invite 
attention. The authorship of this volume rests, as you see, 
between a butcher and a lawyer. At first glance, these two 
occupations would seem to have nothing in common, but on 
second consideration we find this correspondence : that one 
flays his anhnals^ and the other his clie7its. 

IS^ow, are there any accountants among my readers ? And 
do they ever multiply by a nought ? If so, what is the 
result ? Exeunt Shakspectre. 

Let us now pass on to a brief consideration of tlie life and 
times of Sir Francis Bacon, Baron of Yerulam, Viscount St. 
Alban, who held the positions of Queen's Counsel under 
Elizabeth, and keeper of the " Great Seal " of England, 
under King James, as well as many minor ofiices of trust 
and honor, including membership in Parliament. 

His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, a man of great learning 
and mental calibre, who, as judge, statesman and keeper of 
the " Great Seal," reflected honor upon his family and 
countiy. His mother was a lady of great talents and refine- 
ment, skilled in classical lore, and familiar with the Latin 
and Italian tongues. Consequently Francis Bacon had 
those early advantages, both of birth and education, enjoyed 
by few, and which were a large factor in the sum of causes 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 33 

that eventually made him the master-mind of his age — if, 
indeed, he is not the master-mind of the world to this date 
— considering the scope of his achievement, and the effect 
he has had, and is to have, upon mankind. 

His acknowledged works, many in number, and exten- 
sive in tlieir manner and matter, have well entitled him to 
be called the " father of experimental philosophy." And 
when the authorship of this volume of plays comes to be 
understood, he will be hailed as the " father of the stage " 
as well. 

Pope has, in his famous coujDlet, borne testimony to the 
fact that Bacon was the '* wisest and brightest of mankind." 

He ought to have been considerate enough to have 
explained how, at the same time, it was possible for him to 
be the meanest ! 

To Bacon's inherited talents, he added the wisdom to be 
gained only by a varied intercourse with mankind, together 
with an exhaustive study of all great authors, ancient or 
modern, and the polish and refinement to be obtained by 
travel and intercourse with the leaders in the fields of 
thought and action. 

He was, early in life, an apt scholar in the French and 
Latin, Greek and Hebrew ; and at the age of seventeen 
had translated some of the best of the ancient authors — and 
not translating only, but in his later years criticising and 
correcting them on many points, from his standpoint of 
experimental philosophy. 

He was, while yet in his minority, a favorite at the Court 
of Queen Elizabeth, who called him her little " Lord 
Keeper ; " and at the age of twenty-eight was appointed a 
member of her council. After filling the positions of 
Attorney General and member of Parliament, he became 



34 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

Lord High Chancellor and Keeper of the " Great Seal," at 
the age of fifty-six. 

By this short summary of his life and times, we find that 
he has given evidence of those grand abilities, united with 
great opportunities, that show him to have beau the very 
opposite of Shakspeare, as far as testimony outside of this 
volume is concerned. 

And when we consider that the principal characters in 
the plays are kings, princes, dukes, noblemen and great 
military heroes, of both ancient and modern times, with the 
circumstances of whose every day life Bacon was familiar ; 
and the other fact, that the niceties of kingly court life, 
the technicalities of the law and the bench, the heights and 
depths of philosophy, and the fine points of all history, are 
alluded to in such a manner as to show that the writer was 
a master spirit in them all ; this, I repeat, shows the wizard 
hand of Bacon. 

But the question is often asked — nay, indeed, it is always 
asked by those who have given the subject little or no con- 
sideration, and whenever the subject is broached — " Why 
should he desire to hide himself in or behind his works?" 

This is a fair question, and deserves a full and candid 
answer. 

We are informed in a foot note to this edition of 1623, 
that in Elizabeth's time, and after, the " Play Books" were 
burned, privately by the Bishops, and publicly by the 
Puritans. It is entirely reasonable to suppose that Bacon 
did not then desire to be known as a play writer, he being 
at that time in high favor at court. 

Again, Mr. Bacon informs us in liis apothegm No. 22, first 
collection, as follows : " The book for the deposing of King 
Kichard the Second, and the bringing in of Henry the 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 35 

Fourth, supposed to have been written by a Dr. Hayward, 
who was committed to the tower for it, had much incensed 
the Queen, and she asked Mr. Bacon, he being tlien of her 
counsel learned, " Whether there was any treason contained 
in it?" Who, intending to do the doctor a pleasure, and 
to take oft* the Queen's bitterness with a merry conceit, 
answered, "No, Madam; for treason I cannot deliver an 
opinion that there is any, but very much felony." The 
Queen apprehending it gladly, ask'd, " How and wherein ?" 
Mr. Bacon answered, " Because he had stolen most of his 
conceits from Cornelius Tacitus !" 

You see he knew wlio took them from Cornelius Tacitus, 
and the result was that the doctor, who was the supposed 
author^ as Bacon dryly says, was released. 

And yet it was no child's play in those days, to be com- 
mitted to the Tower, and be in danger of being obliged to 
contribute one's own head towards the advancement of the 
public good. 

But these are the excuses, merely. High above these as 
are the heavens above the earth — speaking poetically — is 
the other and greater reason. 

Kow, I believe it is generally admitted — at least it is so 
Avithin a radius of seventy-five miles from Boston — that one 
good question deserves another. Hence, I ask, " Hath any 
one seen God at any time ?" No. And yet he is hid in 
his works, is he not? Why then should he hide himself, 
except that those who desire him, may seek him there, and 
seeking him, may learn of his works. 

Speaking in relation to this very same subject of con- 
cealed truth, Mr. Bacon says, that the wise King Solomon, 
" although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnifi- 
cent buildings ; of shipping and navigation ; of service and 



36 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

attendance ; of fame and renown, and the like, yet lie mak- 
eth no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory 
of the inquisition of truth, for so he saith expressly, ' The 
glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king 
is to find it out ;' as if, according to the innocent play of 
children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his vjorks^ 
to the end to have theinfoioid out / and as if kings could 
not obtain a greater honor than to be God's play-fellows in 
that game, considering the great commandment of wits and 
means whereby nothing need, to be hidden from them." 
All which is very tine, indeed, judging from Mr. Bacon's 
position, where he stands hidden behind his best work. 

And now, therefore, as the secrets of nature are gloriously 
hid, and as man is at the head of animated nature, and, 
tii'^refore, is king thereof, so it is his glory to search out 
the secrets of nature, and make her forces subservient to his 
will ; for r\ature doth ever reveal lierself to those wlie dili- 
gently seekhor, and truth is nature's hand-maid. 

If, then, Mr. Eacon chose so high a standard, and did his 
work so effectively a& to defy and defeat detection for more 
than two centuries, it is clear that he stands unrivaled in that 
field, as in so many others. What, then, must have been 
the intense satisfaction and the very essence of mirthful- 
ness experienced by Mr. Bacon as he sat in his study and 
beheld the literary world of his day all agog, and gazing 
into the heavens in astonishment at the intellectual rain- 
bow which they saw spanning the world from horizon to 
horizon, and apparently without cause, when the true 
solution of the mystery was to be found in the natural 
world on either hand. The literary lights of that day 
seemed to jump at the conclusion, \.\\ixt somethmg aoxM and 
did come from nothlruj; and with eyes closed and mouth 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 37 

ajar, took the bait that was prepared for tliem by this 
fisher-of-inen ! 

They remind one, of those rare hunters from the urban 
districts, who display an nnusual amount of ability in the 
way of passing unwittingly by the covert where their game 
is concealed. Even the great Dr. Samuel Johnson, in the 
succeeding century, who, by the side of others of his time, 
appears as a huge intellectual " Jumbo " (see his picture in 
Vol. I., Boswell's Life of Johnson), stalking the earth, his 
left arm uplifted, his fingers extended as if raking the air 
in a vain endeavor to conjure up something equal to Shak- 
speare ! He, too, must be classed along with those cute 
hunters, whose rarest achievement was the act of passing 
directly over the covert w^hei'e their game lay hid at their 
feet. For if this learned Dr. Johnson could be deceived in 
so simple a matter as the difference between "windward 
and leeward," as he was in making his dictionary (see Bos- 
well's Life, quoted above), why may not he be equally 
easily deceived as to " how the wind blew," in the matter 
of this authorship which had been so cunningly concealed ? 

I feel that I should not be doing justice to this part of 
the inquiry, did I not call the reader's attention to the 
really fine picture of Bacon to be found in the volume I 
have quoted from, as published by Ward, Lock & Co., 
London, Eng., which can be had at the book stores here ; 
it shows him in the prime of life, and with a peculiar smile 
'round his mouth, in fact, playing over his features gener- 
ally, as if he were about to say : 

" Mete it is, I set it down that one may smile, 
And smile — and be a villain." 

I now pass on to the consideration of the blot now rest- 
ing upon Bacon's name, and of the confession which caused 



38 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

it. It is alleged that lie was guilty of malfeasance in office. 
Let us examine this charge and confession, together with 
the sentence pronounced against him. 

If there was corruption in the administration of affairs of 
State, he was not responsible for the acts of others. When 
it was noised about that there were to be charges brought 
against him, he immediately made a confession that he was 
guilty. His friends among the lords expressed astonish- 
ment, and asked, " could it be possible," thus showing that 
they had not surmised it. He not only confessed, but 
renounced all defense, thus putting a stop to all inquiry as 
to the extent or kind of his fault. My Lords, said Bacon, 
t' It is my act, my hand, my heart ; I beseach your Lord- 
ships to be merciful to a broken reed." Highly dramatic, 
you see. He is fined £40,000 ; imprisoned in the Tower at 
the pleasure of the king ; declared incapable of holding 
office ; banished from the verge of the ccmrt ! 

Now, this is a most remarkable confession and sentence, 
especially so when we consider that it was remitted almost 
as soon as passed. My theory of this whole matter is this : 
That as he was the prince of writers, so also was he a prince 
of actors — not players — and as he tells us, "it was his act." 

"Banishment from the verge of the court" was nothing 
to him ; he was not in the habit of sta3dng at the verge of 
anything, or any place. He a broken reed ? Why, the 
works that came from his hand — aside from this volume — 
both before and after the mock sentence, show him to have 
been the central pillar of the intellectual world in his day, 
indeed, if he is not so still. His confession really meant 
that "he had appropriated to his own use that which 
belonged to others;" in other words, he had taken the 
knowledge of the world, and used it for the good of his 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 39 

fellow men. This view coincides with his statement to his 
uncle, when making application for a position under the 
government : " I confess I have vast contemplative ends, as 
I have moderate civil ends ; for I have taken all hiiowledge 
to my province.'''' Bacon may well be likened unto a great 
central power, with many outlying provinces ; these are his 
books. And this volume of plays is his best province, to 
which he has taken all the knowledge of the world, and 
where we find it condensed into the smallest possible space, 
and in the most convenient shape to reach the mass of man- 
kind for whose benefit it was intended. 

His " thieving act" was all in his eye ; in other words, 
there was nothing in it, and to show you that there's 
nothing in it, he holds it wide open, in his picture, for your 
inspection ! 

I take great pleasure in noting just here, his opinion in 
regard to the mechanical arts; it will show that he is 
entitled to the respect and highest esteem of every worker 
therein. In his classification of Histories, in his great book, 
"Ad. Learning," he says : " If my judgment be of any 
weight, the use of History Mechanical is, of all others, the 
most radical and fundamental towards natural philosophy ; 
such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of 
subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall 
be operative to the endowment and benefit of man's life," 
etc. In this he shows himself to have been a true " son of 
Ham," in that he was not afraid of a pair of black hands, 
and so deserves the esteem of all true workers. 

In a free commonwealth like ours, the citizens are, or by 
right ought to be, equal in law, yet there are many grades 
of humanity ; and although we have our servant the Presi- 
dent, and many under-servants ; we have our merchant 



40 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

princes witli their world-wide operations ; we have our 
doctors of divinity, doctors of medicine, and doctors of law 
— for the soul, the body, and the purse — yet is the mechanic 
king of all. Like Saul of old, he is head and shoulders 
above them ; for 'tis only in obedience to the fiat issuing 
from his brain that the crude materials of nature change 
shape and assume forms of usefulness and beauty. 

He is indeed king of matter, and for that matter, king of 
all matter ; but what matters that if he does not know 
enough to l)e king ? He will sell his birthright for a mess 
of pottage as often as it is placed in his hands. Ergo, let 
the francliise rest upon the basis of a reasonable amount of 
intelligence. The " franchise " is the crown of a free man ; 
if he be enlightened he will not cast it at the feet of his 
enemy. 

But to return to Bacon. Others have been martyred, 
and crucified, but he crucified Idniself by casting a cloud 
over his own works and acts, in order to carry them forward 
to an age when they could, and would, be better appreci- 
ated. Is it not time his works were examined in connection^ 
and justice done to the " Foremost man of all this world ? " 

In connection with the life and acts of Bacon, and with 
the times since, there are many of the incidents and charac- 
ters in the plays which are finely typical, as I think any one 
will readily see, when the attention is called thereto. 

King Lear typifies the British people, when they shall 
have come to their senses sufliciently to enable them to do 
justice to their best author ; while Cordelia is Delia Bacon, 
whose only fault was a consuming desire to discover the 
true authorship of " Shakspeare," and who was driven to an 
untimely grave by the senseless stupidity of the British 
people of her day, who would not listen to her. Then, as 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 



41 



we see King Lear killing bini who was hanging Cordelia, 
so will the British people finally do justice to their greatest 
author, by examining the proofs to be found in the plays 
and in his acknowledged works ; and when that is done, his 
enemies will be effectually kill'd off. 

Julius C?esar fitly typifies Bacon, and while Macaulay 
was his Brutus, Pope was his dam'd Casca. 

My readers wdll please pardon in that I am not '' meek 
and gentle with these butchers," as was M. Antony. 




PART II. 

COMPARISON OF THE WORKS OF BACON WITH THIS VOL- 
UME OF PLAYS. 

The following comparison of the acknowledged works of 
Bacon with this volume of plays is not made with the 
purpose in view of establishing the claims of Bacon to the 
authorship, as that has already been fully demonstrated, as 
we think, but rather it is made in the way of corroborative 
testimony, to make assurance doubly sure, and also to show 
wherein the greatest worth of the plays consists — that is to 
say, that although as plays they have been, and still are 
considered as masterpieces in the English language, yet they 
are as but the string upon which the pearls of scientific 
and philosophical thought are strung, and so placed that 
the common people may have access to them, even though 
they may never think of looking for them in the depths of 
thought whence they came; and unfortunately there are 
very many who never think of going pearl hunting for 
themselves. 

Now, when we consider that the wit and wisdom of all 
past ages is contained in this volume of plays, and gathered 
by a hand, whose equal as a gleaner of knowledge the world 
has not yet produced, we begin to see how great a legacy 
Bacon has left to mankind. 

As he was not contented with theory simply, but tested 
everything by comparison and experiment, there was no 
field that escaped him ; and the heiglith, depth and breadth 
of everything yielded up its secrets, until at last in an effort 



MYSTERY or" SHAKSPEARE. 43 

to still further add to the sum of human knowledge, he lost 
his life. 

It is recorded in the volume of Bacon's works, published 
by Ward, Lock & Co., London, Eng., that he contracted a 
severe cold in stuffing a fowl with snow to preserve the 
same for future experiment and study, and from the effects 
of which he died. 

But if it should transpire that he lived long enough after 
tliat to stuff the whole world, many things that now look 
dark and mysterious will be cleared up, and then 'twill be 
seen that — 

" There are many things in heaven and earth that phi- 
losophy never dream'd of." 

But, be that as it may, yet did we not know that with 
nature there is "no change or the shadow of turning," w^e 
might wish that she had dealt more gently with him than 
she is wont to do with common mortals. Permit me now 
to invite your attention to a fact, readily recognized when 
the attention is called thereto, viz., that there is a wonder- 
ful chain running through the plays, linking them together 
in such manner as to coavince the most casual observer 
that they are all the work of the same hand ; and that this 
was intentional on the part of the author there can be no 
doubt. 

There are certain minor characters carried through several 
of the plays ; there are pointed allusions made by the actors 
in certain plays, to well known ideas and acts of other plays, 
as this, from Hamlet : 

Horatio. "A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye." (That 
is to say, I give you something to stir up your wits.) 



44 >[YSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

" In the most high and pahny State of Rome, 
A little e'er the mightiest Julius fell, 
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets." 

An almost exact quotation from Julius Cgesar, thus inti- 
mating that the writer of "Hamlet," was the author of 
" Cpesar," as well. 

Then there is the connected series of the Kings Henry 
and their times, forming a literary chain, unmatched in the 
work of any other author of plays. Dr. Johnson thought 
that "Shakspeare designed a regular succession of these 
dramatic histories." And yet there is a hreah in the chain, 
and this ^^hy^eah^'' becomes a pointer — a key invaluable 
— in showing us where to look for the author of these 
plays, and in itself is conclusive evidence that the author 
was no other than Bacon himself. And beyond a doubt, 
this hreah in this connected series was intended as one of 
those " ciphers " by which the authorship was to be clearly 
shown, as I think the reader will plainly see when I dis- 
close the hiding place of this " missing link." 

We have the plays of Henrys Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and 
Eighth. Where is the Seventh? How is it that the 
greatest of the Henrys has no play in his honor ? That 
Henry the Seventh was the greatest of them all, Mr. Bacon 
fully shows us in many places in his works, notably in his 
great book. Ad. Learning. This is clearly seen when we 
consider that he it was who put an end to the Civil Wars 
" of the Roses," by uniting in himself and his queen the 
rights of the two rival houses of York and Lancaster. 

Now, if Shakspeare had written this series of plays, 
would he have been so particular as to leave out the greatest 
liero ? "Ah, there's the rub." 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 45 

Besides, are we not informed in the life of Sliakspeare, 
by his friends, that this same Henry the Seventh was the 
very one who, in times past, had given honor and prefer- 
ment to one of Shakspeare's ancestors. If so, how is it 
that he, in writing a series of historical plays, commemor- 
ative of the heroic times and glorious deeds in the lives of 
the Henrys, has utterly failed to acknowledge the claim of 
Henry the Seventh, but has passed by in silence the greatest 
hero of them all ? 

Does not this show ingratitude, to say the least, not to 
mention a want of appreciation of his times and deeds. 

But, on the other hand. Bacon being the author of the 
plays, and considering that Henry the Seventh deserved 
something better — more than could be condensed into the 
narrow limits of a play — has been particular in giving us 
such a history " as his times deserved." 

Is it possible for us to believe, with a knowledge of this 
fact, that Sliakspeare would thus sMjp the greatest, and that 
Bacon would accidentally write up the same individual'^ 
We think not. As " straws show which way the wind 
blows," this becomes a straw of the first magnitude ! And 
this we denominate " Key-cipher number two." This model 
history becomes the " missing link," which, when placed 
where it belongs, at the conclusion of the play of Richard 
the Third, not only completes the story, but it discloses the 
true authorship of this volume as well. 

To see the beauty of this cunning arrangement, one need 
only take the trouble to examine the last scene in the last 
act of Bichard the Third, where the king rushes on the 
stage roaring for another horse, etc.; all this is designed to 
divert the reader's attention from the quiet manner in 
which the Earl of Bichmond — who defeats the king — is 



46 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

brought in and crowned on the battle-field as King Henry 
the Seventh. 

Then, toward the last of this scene, after he is crowned 
by Stanley with the crown of the slain Richard, allusion is 
made to his marriage with the Princess Elizabeth — the 
joining of the " Roses" — and the like. Now, after reading 
this part of the play, please turn to Bacon's " History of the 
Reign of Henry the Seventh," and note how the story is 
taken up, joined on, and continued unbrokenly. It speaks 
for itself. 

He has been kind enough to oblige us by writing a model 
history of this king, which he dedicates to the Prince of 
Wales. His book, "Advancement of Learning," he dedi- 
cates to the King — James. You see he always aimed high 
— no small game for him. 

In this history he gives us a detailed account of the two 
attempts to raise up a false prince as heir to the house of 
York ; the idea being that one of the princes was not put to 
death in the Tower, as the cruel Richard had commanded, 
but that he had been conveyed away, secretly ; which, if it 
had been true, would have made the title of Henry the 
Seventh not worth tlie mention. Here, then, was material 
for a play, such as Sliakspeare, or any other man, would 
naturally be very glad to profit by — except, as in Bacon's 
case, he intended to make it ^pointer by which to show the 
authorship; and that it was so arranged, a perusal will 
satisfy the most skeptical. 

As this dedication of the " History of the Roign of King 
Henry the Seventh," and the beginning of the history, are 
so pertinent to this inquiry, I cannot do otherwise than 
reproduce them : 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 47 

^"-To the most illustrioiis, and most excellent Prince Charles^ 

Prince of Wales, DioJce of Cornwall^ Earl of Chester, 
■ etc.: 

" It May Please Your Highness, — In part of my acknow- 
ledgeineut to your Highness, I liave endeavored to do honor 
to the memory of the last king of England, that was ancestor 
to the King your father, and yourself ; and was that king to 
whom both unions may in a sort refer ; that of the "Roses" 
being in him consummate, and that of the kingdoms begun ; 
besides, his times deserved it ; for he was a wise man, and 
an excellent king ; and yet the times were rough, and full 
of mibtations and rare incidents. (Note the account of the 
false princes.) 

"As it is with times, so it is with ways, some are more 
up-hill and down-hill, and some are more flat and plain ; 
and the one is better for the liver, and the other for the 
writer. 

" I have not flattered him, but took him to the life as 
well as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better light. 
It is true your Highness hath a living pattern incompar- 
able of the King, your father, but it is not amiss for you 
also to see one of those ancient pieces. 

"God preserve your Highness. Your Highness' most 

humble and devoted servant, 

"FRANCIS ST. ALBAN." 

We will now give you a scrap of the history itself, in 
order to show its connection with the play of Richard the 
Third. The history commences as follows : 

"After that Richard, the third of that name, king in fact 
only, but tyrant both in title and regiment, and so commonly 
termed and reputed in all times since, was, by the Divine 
revenge favoring the design of an exiled man (Earl of 
Richmond), overthrown and slain at Bosworth field, there 
succeeded in the kingdom the Earl of Richmond, thence- 
forth styled Henry the Seventh. 

" The king, immediately after the victory, as one that had 
been bred under a devout mother, and was, in himself, by 
nature, a great observer of religious forms, caused * Te 



48 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

Deum Laudamus ' to be solemnly sung in the presence of 
the whole army upon the place, and was, himself, with gen- 
eral applause and great cries of joy, in a kind of military 
election, saluted king." 

The reader will note that in the jplay^ Hichmoncl is here 

crowned by Stanley. 

Then again the history tells us : 

" There were fallen to his lot and concurrent in his per- 
son, three several titles to the imperial crown. The Urst, 
the title of the Lady Elizabeth, with whom, by precedent 
jjact with the party that brought him in (from exile), he 
was to marry. 

" The second, the ancient and long disputed title, both by 
plea and arms of the house of Lancaster, to which he was 
inheritor in his own person. 

" The third, the title of the sword, or conquest, for he 
came in by victory of battle, and the king in possession was 
slain in the field. 

"Sir William Stanley, after some acclamations of the sol- 
diers in the field, had put a crown of ornament which Rich- 
ard had worn in the battle, and was found amongst the 
spoils, upon King Henry's head, as if that were his chief 
title. 

"And as his victory gave him the knee, so his purpose of 
marriage with the lady Elisebeth gave him the heart, so 
that both hnee and heart did truly bow before him." 

A fine figure of speech ivwly. Now if the reader will 
but compare all this with the last scene of Kichard III., 
they will see that each is the counterpart of the other, with 
the difference only of poetical arrangement. 

This of itself, I think, plainly shows the true author- 
ship. 

A point which the reader will do well to bear in mind 
in connection, is this, that ofttimes when Richard III. is 
enacted, the play is curtailed by throwing out the crowning 
of Richmond, as Henry VIL, by Stanley, which is the pith 
and point of the conclusion of the play, and tlius they do 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 49 

but give you the sliell of the nut, and throw away the 
kernel ! 

And now I feel that I could rest this inquiry here, being 
well assured that the great majority of thoughtful readers 
will be convinced of the soundness of my conclusions, and 
the reliability of the proofs offered. But, inasmuch as I 
have hereinbefore stated that the readers of *' Shakspeare " 
cannot understand him, unless they first become familiar 
with the acknowledged writings of Bacon, I deem it a duty 
— as it is a great pleasure — to place before my readers a few 
of the many parallel passages to be found all through these 
works of Bacon and this volume of plays, plainly denoting 
their origin to be from the same master-hand. 

Now, I observe that a great writer can no more conceal 
his style, his manner of composition, or the general ideas 
peculiar to himself, than he can effectually conceal his per- 
sonal features from his friends, or his identity from the 
world at large ; consequently his writings betray him, even 
if he should swear they were not his own. 

Although I dislike to quote opinions, knowing well that 
they so differ among honest thinkers, yet I must be allowed 
the privilege for once. Dr. Samuel Johnson says the 
writer of this volume of plays — whom he supposes to be 
Shakspeare — " Doth ever follow a quibble ; " "a quibble 
was to him the fatal ^Cleopatra,' for which he lost the 
world, and was willing to lose it." 

Surely this very aptly applies to such a limb of the law 
as was Bacon, who was the son of an eminent judge ; but 
most assuredly not to a butcher, who was a son of a butcher ; 
to such a man as Bacon was known to be — not only skilled 
in judicial lore, but in the technicalities of the law as well, 
rather than to him who had spent his early manhood in the 



50 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

cramped up condition in which we find him at home, and 
afterward in his occupation of common actor and theatrical 
manager. 

I give one quotation — a quibble — in illustration of this 
point, one that is supposed to have been written soon after 
" our Shakspeare " left home, or perhaps before, according 
to the best evidence we have. 

Hamlet — Act 2, Scene 2. 

Polonious. Your noble son is mad. 

Mad call I it : for, to define true madness, 
What ist, but to be nothing else but mad. 
But let that go. 

Queen. More matter, with his art. 

Pol. Madam, I swear, I use no art at all, 

That he is mad, 'tis true ; 'tis true 'tis pity ; 
And pity 'tis, 'tis true ; a foolish figure. 
But farewell it, for I will use no art. 
Mad let us grant him then ; and now remains 
That we find out the cause of this effect ; 
Or rather say, the cause of this defect ; 
For this effect, defective, comes by cause : 
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus." 

For a new beginner this is a " quibble" long drawn out, 
is it not ? To us it savors of the barrister's pet style. 

I will here recall the reader's attention to the Earl of 
Eichmond, and revert to the prophecy of Henry the Sixth, 
concerning him, which we find in Bacon's Essays. Henry 
the Sixth said of Henry the Seventh, when he was a lad, 
and gave him water, " This is the lad that shall inherit the 
crown for which we strive." 

This is repeated every time Richard the Third is enacted, 
and in Henry the Sixth it is recorded. Comment seems to 
be unnecessary here. 

We will now pass to the consideration of the play next 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 51 

in order, Henry the Eighth. In Ad. Learning Mr. Bacon 
says, after reference to the coining in of Henry the Eighth, 
" Then followeth the reign of a king whose actions how- 
sover conducted had much intermixture with the affairs of 
Europe, balancing and inclining, then variable ; in whose 
time also began that great alteration in the State Ecclesi- 
astical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stageP' 

IS^ow, as we find that the play of Henry the Eighth is 
the only one of the series whose plot turns upon the ecclesi- 
astical pivot, we readily see the point of the last sentence 
in the quotation. 

We will now examine Mr. Bacon's ideas on the subject 
of love, and we will find them peculiar with him, and 
we shall find as well, that they are strictly exemplified 
throughout the plays founded upon the master passion. 

In his " Essay on Love," he strikes the key note in this 
dramatical manner : " The stage is more beholden to love 
than the life of man. For, as to the stage, it is ever a 
matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies ; but in 
life it doeth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, and 
sometimes like a fury. You may observe that amongst all 
the great and worthy persons, whereof the memory 
remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not one that 
has been transported to the mad degree of love." Here 
he makes two noted exceptions, one of whom is Marcus 
Antonius — the Mark Antony of the plays ! How odd that 
he should think of him ! 

Then in '' Much Ado About Nothing " we find the 
following : " I do much wonder, that one man, seeing 
how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his 
behavior to love, will after he hath laughed at such shallow 



52 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by 
falling in love." 

And this in Mid-Summer Night's Dream, Act 5, Scene 1. 

" Lovers and madmen have such seething brains — such 
Shaping fantasies that apprehend 
More than cool reason comprehends," etc. 

ISTow, when we consider the love characters as presented 
in the plajs, from the crack-brained admirer of Rosalind 
to the devoted Romeo or Juliet; and from the jealous 
Othello to the superb Antony — " who for a woman's smile 
did throw a world away" — we see a perfect reproduction 
and embodiment of Bacon's love estimate. Is not this 
much more than a coincidence ? 

Let us see what Mr. Bacon has to say on the subject 
of doubt, a doubtful subject to be sure, yet it concludes 
with a point. We read in Ad. Learning : " If a man will 
begin with certainties he shall end in doubt, but if he 
begin with doubt, he shall end with certainties." 

And this in the play answers it completely : " Surety is 
the wound of peace, but modest doubt is the beacon of the 
wise." 

Of the ambition for power we read in Ad. Learning : 
" For so we see by aspiring to be like God in power, the 
anscels transo:ress'd and fell." 

Also in " Essay on Goodness" we have this : " The desire 
of power in excess caused the angels to fall." 

Then read in Henry the Eighth, Act 3, Scene 2 : "Crom- 
well, I charge thee, fling away ambition, by that sin fell 
the angels." 'Twas that same fall, you see ! 

In discoursing upon virtue, Mr. Bacon, alluding to the 
manner in which many of the old philosophers juggled the 
principle of virtue, to make it appear the reverse from that 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 63 

it is, remarks in Ad. Learning : "As it is used in some 
coviedies of errors, wherein mistress and maid change 
habits." 

Now, I know of but one *' Comedy of Errors," and that 
is in this disputed vohime, in which the deeper we go the 
more traces we find of the wizard's work. Please turn to 
Comedy of Errors, Act 5, Scene 1, where you will find a 
mistress whose jealous husband is seeking her to wreak his 
vengeance ; and a maid, who seeing him first, rushes into 
her mistress' apartments exclaiming: "Mistress, mistress, 
shift and save yourself !" 

An odd pair of shifts, indeed, would they be, did we not 
know that the same hand fashioned them both ! 

Then again, in regard to time, and the danger of delays, 
he has this in his Essay on Delay : "For occasion, as it is 
in the common verse — i. e., in the play — after she hath pre- 
sented her locks in front, and no hold taken, turneth a bald 
noddle, or at least, turneth the handle of the bottle first to 
be received, and after the body, which is hard to clasp." 

What do we find in the plays to match this ? " Take 
time by W^^forelocTcf " Take the instant way ;" " Procras- 
tination is the thief of time," and much more in the same 
strain, plainly denoting a parallelism of imagery not to be 
found in any two writers on the same subject, I venture to 
say. 

Here, too, is Mr, Bacon's idea of place and position : 
" Men in great place are thrice servants. It is a strange 
desire to seek power and lose liberty ; or to seek power over 
others and to lose power over one's self. The rising into 
great place is laborious, and by indignities men come to dig- 
nities ; the standing is slippery, and the regress is either a 
downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing." 



54 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

All this reads like very fatherly advice, but its true 
inwardness will be apparent when we have shown up the 
hidden meaning of the illustrations on the cover of this 
edition of 1623, which will be done in its proper place. 

Let us now turn to Henry the Eighth, Act 3, Scene 2, and 
we have, in the words of Cardinal Wolsey : 

" Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man ; to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms. 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; 
Tlie third day comes a frost, a killing frost. 
And — when lie thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root. 
And then he falls, as I do." 

So here we see, as Mr. Bacon has it in his "Essay on 
Great Place," this kind of a fall is a melancholy thing ! 

And to these observations, the last words of Wolsey as 
he applies at the convent, are a fitting conclusion : 

"An old man broken with the storms of state 
Has come to lay his wearj^ bones among ye ; 
Give him a little earth in charity ! " 

Next we will give an item on the excusing of one's own 
faults on the score of friendship : Mr. Bacon observes in 
Ad. of Learning, " As if they might presume, or be bold 
upon them ; it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate their 
fault, and turneth it from injury to impiety." And so we 
have it in the play — the well known quotation — " Ofttimes 
the excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse for 
the excuse." 

Surely reason will not excuse us from recognizing the 
sameness of these two quotations ! 

And here is one more from Ad. of Learning : " As for 
the marshalling of men's pursuits towards their fortune," 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 65 

after showing that it is not money that is the sinew of 
fortune, but rather, wit, courage, resolution, industry, etc., 
he says : " In third place I set down reputation because of 
the peremptory tides and currents it hath, which if they 
he not taken in their due time^ are seldom recovered, it 
being extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation." 

Please compare this with that other well-known quotation 
from the play : '' There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, 
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, — neglected, all is 
lost." 

The same ink may not have been used in the production 
of the above, but it is very evident that the same hand 
guided the pen in both ! 

There are " ear-marks " peculiar to all great writers, and 
here is one to be found in Bacon's acknovrledged works, and 
the plays in about equal proportion : In calling attention to 
the results of certain investigations, or considerations, he 
makes use of the expression " You shall have, &c.," instead 
of " You will find," or, " It will be seen, &c." This expres- 
sion is often used in his works, and the plays generally ; 
and by thoughtful persons, I think it will be readily seen 
that these " ear-marks " are the tell-tale signs of any writer 
of note. 

I desire, next in order, to call the reader's attention to 
the grand word-imagery employed in the plays, and to the 
evidence that the writer thereof was familiar with all the 
deities, myths, fables, legends, fairy tales and jokes to 
which allusion is made in any or all the past literature of 
the world. And also to that equally important fact that 
the writer thereof must have had a prodigious memory, as 
well as an exceedingly fertile imagination. And to show 
Mr. Bacon's great excellence in these qualities of mind, I 



56 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

will furnish you with a few choice bits from his acknowl- 
edged works ; although I must of necessity be too brief to 
do the subject justice. Here is a scrap of every-day phi- 
losophy : 

'' But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear 
and sustain themselves, and be not carried away with a 
whirl-wind or tempest of ambition, ought, in the pursuit 
of their own fortune, to set before their eyes, not only that 
general map of the world, that ' all things are vanity and 
vexation of spirit,' but many other more particular cards 
and directions ; chiefly that being, without well-being, is 
a curse ; and the greater being the greater curse ; and that 
all virtue is most rewarded, and all wickedness most pun- 
ished in itself." No comments needed ! 

In regard to the great number of poor or bad books, he 
says : " The remedy is not in making no more hoohs, but 
rather in making more good hooks, which as the serpent of 
Moses, might destroy the serpents of the enchanters." 

Of truth, he uses these words : " Yet truth, which only 
doth judge itself, teacheth, that the enquir}'^ of truth, which 
is the love-making, or wooing of it ; the knowledge of 
truth which is the presence of it ; and the belief of truth 
which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human 
nature." 

Of philosophy he remarks thus : "And if it be said that 
the cure of men's minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is 
most true ; but moral philosophy may be preferred unto her 
as a wise servant and humble hand-maid ; for as the Psalm 
saith, that 'the eyes of the hand-maid look perpetually 
towards the mistress.'" 

And now to sum up truth, in a small compass, we have 
this from his Essay on Truth : " Certainly it is heaven upon 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 57 

earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in provi- 
dence, and turn upon the poles of truth." 

Has he not here given you the best of human action in 
the least possible compass ? 

In reference to memory and its uses, he says : " It is an 
art that may be raised to points of austentation prodigious, 
and therefore I make no more estimation of repeating a 
great number of names, or words upon the once hearing ; 
or the pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes, 
extempore ; or the making of a satirical simile of every- 
thing ; or the turning of everything into a jest ; or the 
falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the 
like, than I do of the tricks of tumblers, balladims, funan- 
bulos and the like." Here, then, we have an inkling of 
where the power came from to make a " turn upon words" 
in every conceivable way, which we see manifested through- 
out the plays. 

Again, we read in connection with his lirst collection of 
apothegms — two hundred and ninety-five in number — that 
Mr. Bacon " made this collection out of his memory^ with- 
out turning any book." 

Now, when we reflect that, in them, reference is made to 
several hundred authors and prominent personages, and that 
they contain the best wit of the world, from the earliest 
Greek and Latin times to those of his own day, we get a 
glimpse of the scope of his mental power, and the extent of 
his literary researches. 

These three collections of apothegms will compare favor- 
ably with the best the world affords in that line ; but it is 
in the heading of the last collection wherein we see the 
point of the joke. He very bluntly tells you that " this 
collection was first published in the remains^ Kow, 



58 MYSTERY OF SHAK8PEARE. 

there's no book of " remains," that we know of, with which 
he was in any manner connected, except this famous 
volume of plays, which those two " friends" of Shakspeare 
are said to have collected and published as '* his remains." 

Another curious coincidence, indeed, especially so, when 
we reflect that these jokes are snugly sandwiched in the 
different parts of the plays, where they seem to fit as though 
originally intended therefor. 

Ah, the more we examine into this subject, it seems to 
furnish us with additional proof that 

'• There are many things in heaven and earth 
That your philosophy never dreamed of, Horatio." 

There is another peculiarity of Bacon's to which I will 
call attention. He abounds in figures of speech beyond 
most other writers. For example, this on ^' Poesy" in 
Ad. Learning : " Poesy is a part of learning, in measure of 
words for the most part restrained, but in all other points 
extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination, 
which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure 
join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which 
nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and 
divorces of things." 

And this, too, upon Piches : " I cannot call riches better 
than the baggage of virtue ; for as the baggage is to an 
army, so are riches to virtue ; it cannot be spared or left 
behind, but it hindereth the march." 

Of one kind of friendship he says this : " Costly followers 
are not to be liked, lest while a man maketh his train longer, 
he maketh his wings shorter." 

Compare v/ith Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2 : " The friends thou 
hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 59 

hooks of steel ; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
of each new-hatched, unfledged comrad." 

In Ad. Learning we find this : " Divide with reason, 
between self-love and society ; and be so true to thyself, as 
thou be not false to others." 

Compare this, also, with Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3 : 

" To thine own self be true, 
And it shall follow as the night the day. 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

Of two things, I think the reader will by this time be 
convinced, that if Hamlet was mad there was much phi- 
losophy, as well as method, in it, and that there is a perfect 
agreement with Bacon in both of these particulars. 

Thus have I shown, though in a desultory way, Mr. 
Bacon's great felicity in the use of those images and tigures 
with which the plays abound. 

I will continue the comparisons by noting that in the life 
of Shakspeare, to be found in the Rev. William Harness's 
copy of the edition of 1623, there is mention of a verse of 
four lines, said to have been found in a volume of poems, 
and reading thus : 

Shakspeare on the King. 

Crowns have their compass, length of days their date ; 
Triumphs their tombs, felicity her fate : 
Of more than earth can eartli make none partaker ; 
But knowledge makes the king most like his maker. 

Now, let us turn to Bacon's dedication of his book Ad. 
of Learning, and also to his essay on the king, and see if 
we can find anything like this in letter or spirit. 

The dedication is to the king — same King James, be it 

remembered : 

" Wherefore representing your majesty many times unto 
my mind, and beholding you not with the inquisitive 



60 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

eye of presumption, to discover that which the Scrip- 
ture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the observant 
eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts 
of your virtue and fortune, I have been touched, yea, 
and possessed with an extreme wonder at those your vir- 
tues and faculties, which the philosophers call intellectual ; 
the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your 
memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetra- 
tion of your judgment, and the facility and order of your 
elocution ; and I have often thought, that of all the 
persons living, that I have known, your majesty were the 
best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all 
knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man 
by nature, knoweth all things, and hath but her own 
native and original motions (wliich by the strangeness and 
darkness of this tabernacle of the body are sequestered), 
again revived and restored ; such a light of nature I have 
observed in your majesty, and such a readiness to take 
flame and blaze from the least occasion presented, or the 
least spark of another's knowledge delivered. And as the 
Scripture saith of the wisest king, ' That his heart was as 
the sands of the sea ;' which though it be one of the 
largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest 
portions ; so hath God given your majesty a composition of 
understanding admirable, being able to compass and com- 
preliend the greatest matters, and nevertheless to touch 
and apprehend the least ; whereas it should seem an 
impossibility in nature, for the same instrument to make 
itself fit for great and small work. 

"For I am well assured that this which I sliall say is noth- 
ing but a positive and measured truth ; which is, that there 
hath not been since Christ's time any king, or temporal 
monarch, which hath been so learned in all literature and 
erudition, divine and human. 

"For it seemeth much in a king, if, by the compendious 
extractions of other men's wits and labors, lie can take hold 
of any superficial ornaments and shows of learning, or if he 
countenance and prefer learning and learned men ; but to 
drink indeed of the true fountains of learning, nay, to have 
such a fountain of learning in himself, in a hing^ and in a 
king horn^ is almost a miracle. And the more because there 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 61 

is met in your majesty a rare conjunction, as well of divine 
and sacred literature, as of profane and human ; so as your 
majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which in great 
veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes ; the power 
and fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of 
a priest, and the learning and universality of a philosopher." 

I have been bold to tax the patience of my readers some- 
what for the express purpose of showing in what estimation 
King James was held by Mr. Bacon, to whom, he says at 
the conclusion of his book, he is most bounden." This 
same " most bounden " is the expression used by the " play- 
fellows " at the conclusion of their remarkable dedication, 
if you remember. And now, I think, we will be enabled 
to see whence originated the very essence of laudation con- 
tained in the verse of four lines upon the king. But, as I 
have been so particular to show the reader how Mr. Bacon 
has lauded King James to the skies, behind his back, T 
ought also to show how he has larded him to his face ! 
He says, as you see, that to " take hold of the superficial 
ornaments or shows of learning," or "to drink indeed of 
the fountain of knowledsje," is much in a kins: : that is to 
say, that if a king can and will learn anything it's some- 
thing to be thankful for. And, again, "To have such a 
fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a king 
born, is almost a miracle !" That is to say, if a king had 
been made from among the common people he might have 
been expected to know something in himself ; but, to l>e a 
"king born," it was almost a miracle if he did ! 

This must have been royal fun for Bacon ; but it was 
death for the royal frog ! 

But to proceed. In Mr. Bacon's book, New Atlantis — 
an island which he locates away in the South Pacific Ocean 
— he describes the numerous matters in which they excel, 



1 



62 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAKE. 

but in reality he is giving a particular description of the 
arts and sciences as they were in England, and aTS he him- 
self has found, by experiment, to be possible. 

And among these he mentions, '' Instruments also which 
generate heat only by motion ;" and, again, '' places under 
the earth which by nature or art yield heat ; these divers 
heats we use as the nature of the operation requireth." 

Again, '' We have also divers strange and artificial echoes 
reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it, 
and some that give back the voice louder than it came, 
some shriller, and some deeper," etc. 

" "We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and 
pipes, in strange lines and distances." 

" We also have engine houses where are prepared engines 
and instruments for all sorts of motions." 

*' We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions 
of return, and some perpetual motions." 

Here, then, he gives us a very fair and full description 
of his experimental work. For, be it remembered, he is 
not discoursing about an island in the Pacific Ocean — far 
from it — but of things as he has discovered them by his 
untiring perseverance in study and experiment. 

It is plain, from the foregoing, that he had arrived at 
an experimental understanding of the principle of electric 
force and of its possible uses ; of the telephone and its 
application, and in his " perpetual motions," a self-gener- 
ating electrical apparatus ! Is it any wonder, then, that we 
find in the play of the " Tempest " — which was written 
last, but printed first in this edition — a complete account 
of the results of the writer's discoveries in the use of this, 
the greatest force of nature ? 

In this play we see that Prospero is the duke, whose 



MY8TERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 63 

dukedom has been usurped by a faithless brother. He is 
making arrangements to get it haoh again all in good time, 
and he has his spirit Ariel to do his bidding. 

Frospero is Bacon, whose rights another has usurped ; 
and Ariel is electric force, which Prospero has discovered 
and uses to effect his purposes. 

A writer in a late number of the Century says, " Pros- 
pero has power to call up spirits from the vasty deep, but 
Shakspeare has power to call up Prospero." He might 
have added that Bacon had power to call up Shakspeare ; 
but the question now arises, Who is he who will call up 
Bacon ? 

In " Tempest," Act 1, Scene 2, we have this : 

Ariel. '^ I boarded the king's ship, now on the beak, 
Now in the waist, the deck, in ever}^ cabin, 
I flam'd amazement ; sometimes, I'd divide. 
And burn in many places ; on the top-mast, 
Tlie yards and the bowsprit, would I flame dis- 
tinctly. 
Then meet and join ; Jove's lightnings, the pre- 
cursors 
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary 
And sight-outrunning were not ; etc. 

Prospero. My brave spirit ! 

"Who was so firm, so constant that this coil 
Would not infect his reason ? 

Ariel. ]S"ot a soul 

But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd 
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners 
Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel 
Then all a-fire with me. The king's son, Ferdi- 
nand, 
With hair up-starting (then like reeds, not hair). 
Was the first man that leap'd, cried Hell is emjyty^ 
All the devils are here. 

As much truth as poetry in the last sentence, we observe 



64 MYSTEKY OF SHAKSPEARK. 

Then Mr. Bacon gives us his idea of what this force will 
be capable of when rightl}^ understood and used, for 'tis a 
raging lion while untamed, hvX gentle as a lamh when under 
proper restraint. " The lion and the lamb shall lie down 
together." Ariel, who is anxious to be discharged from 
further serv^ice, urges his claim, and is answered : 

Prospero. Dost thou forget 

From what a torment I did free thee ? 

Ariel. No. 

Prospero, Thou dost, and think'st 

It much to tread the ooze of the salt deep ; 
To run upon the sharp wind of the north ; 
To do me business in the veins of the earth 
When it is baked with frost. 

This is precisely what is being done with the cables and 
wires, above and below ground, and beneath the salt sea ! 

Thus we see that he gives, in a poetical allegory, the 
effects of the force he had discovered and brought to a 
working experiment ; and this, too, is in perfect harmony 
with descriptions of his discoveries in the "New Atlantis." 

And does he not also give an account of the same effects 
when telling of the prodigies that occurred before the 
death of Ceasar ? A slave held up his hand, in the streets 
of Home. 

" Which did flame and burn like twenty torches joined." 

And all this but shows that the writer has mastered 
experimentally this greatest force of nature ; therefore when 
he puts into the mouth of Puck — in Mid-Summer Night's 
Dream — the expression, " I'll put a girdle about the earth 
in forty minutes," he but foreshadows the great uses to 
which this force has since been applied. 

From the foregoing, I think the reader will see that he 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 65 

was SO far advanced in experimental electric operation that 
we, after two and a half centuries, are but fairly abreast of 
him in our practical application of the force which he had 
harnessed, and taught to do his bidding ; and that our 
ocean cable is but " Puck's girdle " realized ! 

I ask the reader's attention to the following selection 
from Ballard, a poet of the west, which was written in 
1859, after the first ocean cable had been laid and broken. 
It was equally apropos, and prophetic : 

Ho Cyrus Field ! Will Neptune yield, 

And are thy labors done ? 
Or shall the cable bind the lands 
And warm the hearts and join the hands 

Of England and her son ? 

Thy dauntless skill and Saxon will. 

With ocean's fury strove : 
And through Atlantic's stormy waves, 
Above her mountain peaks and caves. 

The cable coils were wove. 

On wings of flame one message came 
From Albion's sea-girt shore ; 

The new world sent an answering word. 

But now the ocean's spinal cord^ 
Will correspond no more ! 

% Hi H: ^ % >k 

The lightning's tide will yet divide 

The billows of the deep, 
And hourly errands yet shall run 
Between the mother and the son. 

Along the cable leap ! 

O triumph grand ; a mortal hand 

Controls the lightning's swing ; 
And from below the billows foam 
Where life hath never found a home. 
Its trackless courses spring ! 

5 



6Q MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEA.RE. 

It was a favorite and peculiar idea of Bacon's, and I 
believe, original with him, that the famous stor}^ of Plato 
concerning tlie lost island of Atlantis, referred to the con- 
tinent of America rather than to an island in the Atlantic ; 
the ancients supposing that the oceans surrounding this 
vast continent, or island, were one and the same. His idea 
was that " the vast power that came forth out of the 
Atlantic,'' mentioned b}^ Plato, was no other than the 
great empire that embraced the two continents of America, 
and whose fleets and colonies were irresistible, until some 
great catastrophe so curtailed their power that their ship- 
ping interests and colonial enterprises suffered an almost 
total eclipse, and as a consequence ^' Atlantis " was for 
ages lost to the eastern world, until rediscovered by the 
]N^orthmen, and later by Columbus and others. In this view 
of the case, and in the light which Bacon's book — " New 
Atlantis" — throws upon the subject, we see that by his 
prophetic vision he foresaw the rise of a new nation, whose 
tremendous energy and great inventive powers would 
carry forward his experiments to grand practical results. 

Let the reader bear in mind that about the time ^' New 
Atlantis" was written, the great movement was in prog- 
ress in Great Britain, and elsewhere, which resulted in 
the sailing of the Mayflower on its momentous voyage, 
bearing the hopes of the new world, as a certain other 
barque carried Caesar and his fortunes ; and that he — 
Bacon — must have seen from his philosophical standpoint, 
the result of transplanting the British power in the new 
world, and that in the course of time, a "New Atlantis" 
would arise, whose greatness would far outstrip the one 
of old. 

I find that Mr. Bacon gives to Plato the credit for being 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 67 

the master mind of the ancient literary world before the 
time of Csesar ; consequently he quotes him often, as on 
the first page of his great book, Ad. Learning, and in many 
other places, and we need not be surprised that the same 
thing occurs in the plays. "We cannot wonder at this in view 
of the fact that this great reasoner reached the conclusion 
of ultimate immortality for the human race six hundred 
years before the Christian era commenced, and, therefore, 
he is rightly entitled to great consideration as one of the 
fathers of this sublime idea. 

And now to leave off speculation in regard to things of 
the olden time, let us continue the examination of his 
works in connection w^ith this volume of plays. 

We are gravely informed by the biographers of Shak- 
speare tliat Queen Elizabeth was so much pleased with the 
character of Falstaff, that she commanded that he be pro- 
duced as a love character, and that the new play was to 
be finished in fourteen days; 'tis said that Shakspeare 
accomplished the undertaking. Let us see what this amounts 
to. There are twenty-one pages in "Merry Wives of Wind- 
sor" — the play in question — finished in fourteen days — 
one and 07ie half pages every twenty- four hours for four- 
teen consecutive days ! 

Surely the Queen's mirthfulness would have turned into 
pity, had she an inkling of the amount of wear and tear to 
which she was subjecting the brain of " our Shakspeare " 
for her delectation. And especially so when we reflect 
that Johnson's best play — "Rasselas" — was finished in one 
clay and one night ; and that Dr. Johnson wrote forty-eight 
pages of his life of Savage at one sitting, — or in twenty- 
four hours ! And yet Shakspeare is held by his admirers 



68 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

to have been the king of writers ! Isn't there some slight 
mistake^ somewhere, gentlemen % 

It seems to be eminently proper that we pay some little 
attention to the tim£ at which many of these plays are said 
to have been written. According to Dryden, Pericles, 
Prince of Tyre, was the first effort of Shakspeare. Again 
'tis said by other of his admirers that Titus Adronicus came 
first from his hand ; and again Hamlet is said to have been 
his first effort as a " beginner." In either case the mouse 
lahored^ and brought forth a mountain ! 

The dates at which these plays were first published or 
played, show that they must have been produced about the 
time that Shakspeare arrived in London, or even before, 
perhaps. Now, we have seen from his life as published by 
his friends, that his first occupation in the city was holding 
the horses and attending to the equipages of those who 
frequented the theater ^' in style ;" therefore putting that 
and that together, we are led to suppose that when there 
were no horses to hold, he was at leisure to write an act or 
two of that old play of the Roman period — Titus Adronicus ; 
or to afford us a little information as to how Prince Pericles 
became so " Tyre'd ;" or mayhap about that time he sat 
down on the curb-stone and jotted down those instructions 
to players which we find in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, wherein, 
as we have heretofore intimated, the new beginner may 
learn to commence aright, and the accomplished artist still 
find much to assist him in improvement. It rather over- 
taxes our belief, to draw it mild. 

As for Otliello, that fine composition in which the master 
passion is so strongly portrayed, both in its heights and 
depths, and wherein it is made to " work much mischief, 
sometimes like a siren and sometimes like a fury," as Mr. 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 69 

Bacon has it, we see tliat it was founded upon one of 
"Cynthio's Novels," which were not then printed in 
English, and therefore the author must have been learned 
in the French or Italian, in which languages it was to be 
found. 

Bacon was " at home" in both of these ; but Shakspeare 
— who knew "little Latin and less Greek" — was never 
known to exhibit the least knowledge of either of these 
languages. 

Here, then, we have four fine plays, in which are depicted 
all the passions that flesh is heir to, together with the best 
rules of conduct by which to regulate one's life — notably in 
Hamlet — and we are expected to exercise our credulity so 
far as to allow that a green countryman, fresh from the 
butcher shop, could thus teach the masters of theatrical art! 
Ah, what is this that they have been giving us all these 
years ? 

We are informed that "our Shakspeare" bore the appel- 
lation of " the gentle ;" and that he was so, " let me a little 
show it even in this," as Caesar says. Any man of twenty- 
three years of age, who will hold the horses while the other 
man does the play — he's a gentle man — and who says nay ? 

And here is another point in connection with the plays 
as published in this edition of 1623. Very many of them 
— about two-thirds of the whole number — were first pub- 
lished in this edition, thus showing that the writer must 
have had them in his possession at that time. And they 
were seldom, if ever, entered for publication in Shak- 
speare's name, but in the name of various parties, such as 
John Busby, Andrew Wise, James Roberts, Edward Blout, 
etc.; and, be it remembered, this "Blout" is the same 
individual who figures as one of the "sponsors" — so to 



70 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

speak — wlio, it is said, helped to pay for the printing of 
this volume. Do you not begin to see that Bacon was 
cunning game^ and has led you a roundabout chase ? 

It has of late been in print that that queen of the stage, 
Madame Modjeska, intended to have Shakspeare done into 
" Polish ;" it is my earnest conviction that it would be 
equivalent to cruelty to angels, to allow her to proceed 
without due warning, for, beyond a peradventure, he 
will in due time, be polished off by his own country- 
men ; for in looking at these works in whatever light 
we may have, and from whichever standpoint we may 
choose, we invariably find a thin veneering of Sliakspeare, 
upon a heavy backing of Bacon. 

We are very forcibly reminded of the course pursued by 
certain fire insurance companies, that make an ostentatious 
display, on the face of the policy, in glaring letters and 
large figures, of the amount in which they insure you, 
but on the inside thereof they inform you in small type 
and in a score of ways, in which they do not insure you ! 

For proofs of which see notes at the headings of the 
plays in this edition, where they indulge in all manner of 
conjectures in regard to time, place and circumstance in 
connection with the writing of the plays. I give a speci- 
men : 

" The total number of lines contained in these last two 
parts of Henry the Sixth," says Malone, a well-known 
Shakspearian critic, " is six thousand and forty-three ; of 
these, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one were 
written by Marlowe, or Marlowe and his associates ; two 
thousand three hundred and seventy-three were framed by 
Shakspeare on the foundation laid by his predecessors; one 
thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine were entirely his 
own composition ! " 

Now, as they have said they were not sure about the 



MYSTERr OF SHAKSPEARE. 71 

authorship, they ought to have informed us by what pro. 
cess of reasoning, or by wliat mode of arithmetical calcu- 
lation, they arrived at the conclusion that these accom- 
modating writers penned a definite number of lines each ! 

In view of this, then, it seems to us that it ought not to 
require an intellectual telescope of vast power to enable 
any thinking person to discover him who stands behind 
both Marlowe and Shahspeare. 

And who was Marlowe, you ask 1 Why, according to 
this volume he was taking a hand in writing these plays ; 
and on the authority of Mr. Donnelly, he was acting as a 
cover for Bacon, until killed in a street brawl, and then 
Shakspeare came opportunely upon the theatrical carpet 
and filled the same office — putting the plays of Bacon on 
the stage at the bidding of his master. 

That the authorship of Shakspeare was at first taken for 
granted without investigation and afterwards let go by 
default, seems to me to be beyond question ; and therefore 
it is needless to adduce additional testimony as to Bacon's 
authorship, except as a means toward opening up to the 
world a view of one of the finest pieces of literary 
ingenuity that the world has as yet produced. " The seem- 
ing truth that cunning times put on, to entrap the wisest," 
as we find it in Merchant of Venice. 

And now it seems to be in order to note what Mr. Bacon 
has to say upon the subject of " Ciplier," or writing with a 
liidden meaning ; and in this he shows himself to have been 
an adept, fully understanding the different modes in use, 
which he describes in Ad. Learning as Wheel Ciphers, 
Key Ciphers, Doubles (parallels), etc.: " Commonly in 
letters, or alphabets, but may be in words with intermix- 
tures of nulls and non-significants," etc. ''But the virtues 



72 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are three : that 
they be not laborious to read ; tliat they be impossible to 
decipher ; and in some cases, that they be without suspicion. 
The highest degree whereof is to write omnia ^er omnia'y 
which is undoubtedly possible with a proportion quintuple, 
at most, of the writing infolding to the writing infolded, 
and no other restraint whatsoever. This art of ciphering 
hath for a relative an art of deciphering, by supposition 
unprofitable, hut as things are^ of great use.'''' (The italics 
here are mine.) Aye, " as things are" — i. e.^ as he has them 
ciphered out, it is of great use to be able to decipher them ! 
He continues : " In the enumeration of these private and 
retired arts, it may be thought I seek to make a great 
muster-roll of sciences, naming them for show and austen- 
tation, and to little other purpose ; but let those which are 
skilful in them judge, whether I bring them in for appear- 
ance, or whether in that in which I speak of them, though 
in few words, there be not some seed of proficience." 

Here, then, we have his admission that he was perfectly 
familiar with the theory and practice of " hidden ciphers," 
and of their great use, '' as things are." Hence, we need 
not be surprised at finding that this volume of plays is a 
complete storehouse of hidden writing. This I will show 
as we proceed. 

And in this connection it is in order to allude to Mr. 
Donnelly's complete success in linking Mr. Bacon's full 
name with this disputed volume ; the multiplication of cer- 
tain words, obtained in regular order, with the number of 
the page on which they occur, giving the number of the 
word sought, counting from the beginning of the play. In 
this manner he obtained the following astonishing result: 
" Francis — Bacon — St. — Albans — Volume — Plays — Found 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 73 

— Out !" — a result, I venture to say, tlie like of which could 
not be obtained in the same manner in any other volume in 
all the libraries of the world. 

And yet this is but one of the numerous ciphers, or 
" keys," so cunningly placed, in various ways, throughout 
this book. The arrangement of the " dash" in the preface, 
which is first and best, in that it gives the authorship away 
at the start ; the allusion to " his other friends, whom, if 
you need can be your guides," which points the reader to 
tlie other works of Bacon, and the history of the reign of 
King Henry the Seventh, which is the missing link in the 
plays of the Henrys — these are some of the principal key 
ciphers, though undoubtedly most of the parallel passages 
were intended as such ; and although these ciphers, con- 
sidered singly, may be thought to be of small importance, 
yet by their connections become full of meaning, and 
capable of accomplishing great results. As we have it in 
the play : 

"And like a cipher standing in rich place, 
I multiply many times, I thank you !" 

Speaking of the works of Deity, Mr. Bacon says : " He 
doth often hang the greatest things on the smallest wires ; " 
and so, following this same order he has hung great things 
even upon a cipher ! 

I have before called attention to Mr. Bacon's penchant 
for experimentation, and I will give a few ideas in connec- 
tion therewith. 

In the study of anatomy he was one of the first to prac- 
tice and recommend vivisection, in order to a more com- 
plete understanding of animal structure in connection with 
the study of the human system, and this practice made him 
a convert to the idea of evolution, as it is termed today ; 



74 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

and ill justice to his convictions, and with a strict regard 
for truth, he was forced to admit the ascent of man from 
the lower orders of animals : consequently we see in his 
book, Ad. Learning, that he strode over from the seven- 
teenth to the nineteenth century, and stood alongside of 
the great Darwin, in these remarkable words : " For cer- 
tainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, but in soul 
he is of God." 

Is not this an equivalent of the expression in the play so 
often quoted : 

" A touch of nature makes all the world akin." 

In this connection I cannot refrain from giving one item 
for the especial benefit of the medical fraternity. He says 
in Ad. Learning : " And although a man would think 
by the daily visitation of the physicians that there was a 
perseverance in the cure ; yet let a man look into their 
prescripts and ministrations, and he sliall find them but 
inconsistencies, and every-day devices, without any settled 
providence or project ; " and he clinches the nail with one 
of his apothegms, to wit : 

" Archbishop Grindall was wont to say that the physi- 
cians here in England, were not good, at the cure of par- 
ticular diseases ; but had only the power of the church, to 
hind and to loose ! " 

This seems to he a bitter pill for both professions. The 
subject of death — on which Mr. Bacon has much to say — 
seems to be next in order, though I hope it will not be 
deemed an invidious selection! He says: "Who can see 
worse days than he that yet living doth follow at the funerals 
of his own reputation ? " 

" I might say much of the commodities that death can 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. . 76 

sell a man, but, briefly, death is a friend of ours, and who- 
soever is not ready to entertain him, is not at home ! " 

In his essay on death he has this : " I have often thought 
upon death, and find it the least of all evils ; " again : 
*' Herein I do profess myself a stoic, to hold grief no 
evil, but a thing indifferent ; " and this : " But I consent 
with Caesar that the suddenest passage is the easiest." 

Let us see, then, what he has made Csesar to say on this 
subject. Turn to Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2. 

" Cowards die many times before their deaths ; 
The valiant never taste of death but once. 
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard. 
It seems to me most strange that men should fear ; 
Seeing that death, a necessary end. 
Will come — when it will come." 

How odd that two authors should think and write on 
every subject, precisely alike ! 

This of Bacon's throws additional light on the subject : 

" Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark ; and 
as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is 
the other." 

This too, from " Measure for Measure," is very much to 
the point : 

"The weariest, and most loathed world of life 
That age, ache, penury, or imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death." 

He sums up in this wise: "It is worthy of observing 
that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it 
mates and masters the fear of death ; and therefore death 
is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath »so many 
attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. 
Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; lionor 



76 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

aspireth to it ; grief fleeeth to it ; nay, we read that after 
the Emperor Otho had slain himself, pity, which is the 
truest of affections, provoked many to die, out of mere com- 
passion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of fol- 
lowers." 

In all this we have not only a perfect agreement with 
Caesar's idea of death, but we have a fine example of image 
portraiture, such as is scattered through the plays, and in 
the use of which Mr. Bacon was so proficient. 

Again, the writer of these plays understood all the phases 
of society, and court life and etiquette, a knowledge to be 
best obtained by a participation therein ; and here, too, Mr. 
Bacon was at home, having been the favorite of Queen 
Elizabeth at the age of seventeen and after, and eventually 
marrying a rich alderman's daughter ; and this reminds us 
that when he says in his "Essay on Death," he never knew 
him to be welcome at the door of an alderman^ he was but 
poking a sad joke under the short ribs of his father-in- 
law^ ! 

Most of my readers will, I am sure, recall the fact that 
it is written that, " the last enemy that shall be destroyed, 
is death." And it is also written that, " Mankind were in 
bondage through fear of death." 

Now, it is not the fact of death, but the fear thereof 
from which mankind needs redemption. And, this, bear 
in mind, is both Caesar's and Bacon's idea ; they seem to 
agree perfectly well, you see. But remove the fact of death, 
and mankind would become a race of cannibals in less than 
one century ! On the other hand, remove the fewr of 
deaths and you destroy the bondage under which the race 
has labored through the ages even to this day ; nay more, 
you relieve them from the mortgages held over them by 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 77 

those who deal in future options, and some one's occupation, 
other tlian Othello's, would be gone indeed ! 

"A consummation devoutly to be wished." 

But, as Mr. Bacon says, " How am I swayed from my 
purpose in this." Let us then return to the subject in 
hand, and see what he has to say about the death of Csesar 
in particular. In his " Essay on Friendship " he says of 
Brutus, who loved Caesar, and who loved him : " And this 
was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to 
his death. For when Csesar would have discharged the 
Senate, in regard of some ill-presages, and especially a 
dream of Calphurnia, his wife, this man — Brutus — lifted 
him gently by the arm, out of his chair, telling him he 
hoped he would not dismiss the Senate till his wife had 
dreained a better dream ! " 

We will now turn to the play of Julius Csesar, Act 2, 
Scene 2, and learn what Brutus has to say on this point. 

Brutus has gone to Caesar's house to bring him to the 
Senate ; Calphurnia desires him to stay at home on account 
of the evil omens seen, and of her own dream, and Caesar 
has about decided to yield to her wishes — as all good hus- 
bands do — sometimes — when Brutus, to induce him to go, 
says : " The Senate have concluded to give this day a crown 
to mighty Caesar. If you send word you will not come, 
their minds may change." 

Besides, it were a mock apt to be rendered for some one 
to say, '' Break up the Senate till another time, when 
Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams ! " 

Ah, who would dream of two hands, holding the same 
pen at one and the same time ! 

That Mr. Bacon considered Julius Caesar to be the 
greatest man the world had produced, we see in many 



78 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

places in his works, as well as in the plays, the same being 
quoted by Bos well in his life of Johnson. A few citations 
will suffice. In Ad. Learning he says: "As for Caesar, 
the excellency of his learning needeth not to be argued 
from his education, or his company, or his speaches, but in 
a further degree doth declare itself in his writings and 
works. For first we see, there is left unto us, that excellent 
history of his own wars, which he entitled only a comment- 
ary, wherein all succeeding times have admitted the solid 
weight of matter, and the real passages, and lively images 
of actions and persons expressed in the greatest propriety 
of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was, which, 
that it was not the effect of a natural gift (as 'tis said of 
'our Shakspeare '), but of learning and precept, is well 
witnessed by that work of his entitled, ' De Analogia,' 
being a grammatical philosophy, in which he took, as it 
were, the picture of words from the life of reason. So we 
receive from him a monument of his power and learning, 
the then reformed computation of the year ; well expressing 
that he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe 
and know the laws of the heavens, as to give laws to men 
upon the earth.'* 

This, too, is from the same book : " Caesar did extremely 
affect the name of king ; and some were set on, as he passed 
by, in popular acclamation to salute him king ; whereupon, 
finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off in a kind of 
jest," etc. 

Now if the reader will please compare this with the play 
of Caesar, where Antony offers him the crown, and the 
people shout in his honor, they will readily see the entire 
harmony of ideas expressed. And then, too, consider the 
expression used by Antony, where he says the conspirators 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARK. l\f 

" liave killed the foremost man of all this world," and the 
picture will be complete. 

I will close this part of the inquiry with an item from 
Mr. Bacon's " Life of Caesar," compared with the play : 

" He was without dispute a man of great and noble soul ; 
though rather bent on procuring his own private advantage 
than good to tlie public ; for Tie referred all things unto 
khnself and was the truest centre of his ovm actions ; for 
neither his country or religion ; neither good offices, rela- 
tives or friends, could check or moderate his designes." 

Now we will turn to the play, Act 3, Scene 1, where the 
conspirators are praying him to change his order concerning 
a banished friend of one of them. 

^' I could be well moved if I were as you ; 
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 
But I am constant as the northern star 
Of whose true-fixed, and resting quality, 
There is no fellow in the firmament. 
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks. 
They are all fire, and everyone doth shine ; 
But there's but one in all doth hold his place : 
So, in the world ; 'tis furnished well with men, 
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive ; 
Yet in the number, 1 do know but one 
That unassailable holds on his rank, 
Unshaked of motion : and, that I am he, 
Let me a little shew it, even in this ; 
That I am constant, Cimber should be banislied. 
And constant do remain to keep him so." 

And thus we see in this play, as in Bacon's life of Caesar, 
" He did refer all things unto himself, and was the truest 
centre of his own action." He seemed to consider himself 
the hub of the universe — tliough I believe he never lived in 
Boston ! 

How, I ask, is it possible to use words in two places and 
under different circumstances, and express precisely the 



80 MYSTERY OF SHAK8PEARE. 

same meaning, any better than we see done in this ; and 
what two writers would, or could, do it, and not be in 
collusion ? And we feel constrained to ask, who, after close 
examination, can fail to see the wizard's hand in all this? 

We now give the reader an item by which to show Mr. 
Bacon's idea of envious people. We find this in his Essay 
on Goodness : " Such men, in other men's calamities, are, 
as it were, ever in season, and make it their practice to 
bring men to the bough — to hang — and yet have never a 
tree for the purpose in their garden as Timon had." 

Now please turn to the play of Timon of Athens, Act 5, 
Scene 2. We find that Timon is quite put out with all the 
world, and especially with the people of Athens, and has 
gone out into nature's wide domain, and is actually living 
on roots, furnished by mother earth. 

By some of his acquaintances, who come from the city 
to see him, Timon sends his compliments to the people of 
Athens, and invites them all out to hang on the tree in his 
garden, ere he cuts it down ! 

In view of these characteristics of Timon, we must allow 
that in all probability he was an ancient ancestor of Bacon, 
who like him was ever rooting round to " turn up " some- 
thing ; but while he was lashing his own sides with the tail 
of a pig, he was preparing to lash his own countrymen 
with the sting of a scorpion ! For these plays become in 
his hands a whip of small cords, with a sting in each. 

As witness this from Richard II., Act 2, Scene 1, speak- 
ing of England : 

" This dear — dear land. 
Dear for her reputation through the world. 
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it) 
Like to a tenement, or pelting farm ; 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 81 

England, bound in with the triumphant sea 
Whose rockj shore beats back the envious siege 
Of watery JS^eptune, is now bound in with shame ; 
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds ; 
That England, that was wont to conquer others, 
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself." 

And now, if these two quotations, mentioned above, 
from the Essa^^s of Bacon, and from Timon of Athens, do 
not show fruit off the same bough, then indeed are art and 
nature both at fault, and we do but dream by the rule of 
opposites ! 

The learned Mr. Wm. Draper, in his great work, the 
"Conflict of Science and Religion," has alluded to the 
fanciful philosophy of Bacon. He may well call it fanci- 
ful, for in making his philosophical points, in the plays and 
in his other writings, he has thrown in many fanciful 
expressions, sometimes as a cover, but often solely to give 
vent to the very exuberance of his fancy ; the reader must 
sift the grain from the chaff ! For when he is specially 
desirous of covering his tracks, he is either grandiloquently 
eloquent, or absurdly comical. As an instance I recall the 
quotation from the play of C?esar, to be found in Hamlet, 
where, after the " tenantless graves and the sheeted dead," 
he gives us thirteen dashes all in a row, simply to mark an 
omission in the quotation — this and nothing more — eh? 
A very odd arrangement, you think ? Yes, thirteen always 
was considered odd, especially at a dinner table, where some 
one was sure to die after it ! But seriously, does any one 
suppose that the writer and publisher of this volume did 
not know the meaning and use of the clash^ but ignorantly 
used it in place of the asterisk to denote an omission in the 
quotation ? 



82 MYSTERY OF SHAK8PEARE. 

There's a little innocent conundrum that will illustrate 
this point to a nicety — to wit : 

Why are these thirteen dashes equal to eleven, and no 
more ? Sponge up ? Because arranged in this way, they 
become the little 'leven that 'levens the whole lump ! 

But let the leaven work — " I'll use no art." 'Tis but a 
piece of his audacity in placing before your eyes the very 
stumbling block over which you tumbled in the preface ! 
In all this he is but giving you the sweetest kind of taffy ; 
nay, more, he holds you spell-bound with his ghostl}^ 
witcheries, while he administers the dose ; more still, he 
grasps you hy the standing locks and crams it down your 
throat ! 

But this is not all in this connection ; he has used the 
^'dasli" in every conceivable way, in season and out of 
season, in every play, but he has capped the climax in '^ All's 
Well that Ends Well," Act 2, Scene 3. The curing of the 
king is the ostensible topic, but the dash itself is the 
particular subject of comment, as we see in tlie following 
extract. I will bracket the "dash," in order that its full 
effect may be the better realized : 

Lafeu. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. 

Pai'olles. It is, indeed; if you will have it in tlie show- 
ing you shall read it in What do you call there ? (Dash.) 

Lqfeu. A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly 
actor. 

Parolles. That's it, I would have said the very same. 

Lafeu. Why, your dolphin is not lustier ; fore me, I 
speak in respect (of Dash). 

Parolles. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the 
brief and the tedious of it ; and he is a most facinorious 
spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the (Dash). 

Lafexi. Very hand of heaven. 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 83 

Parolles. Aye, so I say. 

Lafe%i. In a most weak (Dash). 

Parolles. And debile minister, great power, great tran- 
scendence : which should indeed give us a further use to be 

made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be 

(Dash). 

Lafeu, Generally thankful. 

Parolles. I would have said it, etc. 

In this cunning handling of this innocent "dash," where- 
in it is called " most weak," and a " dolphin," we are assured 
that it has something to do other than curing a king. We 
should say as much ! And 'tis a dolphin because a dolphin 
is, in its proper element, a very sportive creature ; and like- 
wise this dash, properly placed, is capable of producing a 
great deal of sport. 

Bacon's own son, Hamlet, thus remarks : 

" Let it work ; 
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 
Hoist with his own petar ; and it shall go hard 
But I will delve one yard below their mines 
And blow them at the moon ; O 'tis most sweet 
When in one line two crafts directly meet." 

As " our Shakspeare" conceived the dash, so also is he 
the engineer thereof, and it thus becomes the " petar" that 
will hoist him ! These two crafts are the bogus friends of 
Shakspeare, who are sailing under false colors — i. e., false 
names — and they meet in one line the dash ! 

Now, when they are blown at the moon, and arrive in as 
good order as the urgency of the case will admit of, let us 
be charitable enough to suppose that they will be enabled 
to afford us exact information as to what it is made of. 

We see in the Tempest — his latest play — that Prospero, 
who is acting the part of the wizard and necromancer, but 



84 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

who is none other than Bacon himself, whose rights have 
been usurped, says : 

" But this rough magic 
I here abjure : and, when I have required 
Some heavenly music (which even now I do), 
To work mine end upon their senses, that 
Tliis airy charm is for, I'll break my staff. 
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, 
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, 
I'll drown my book." 

That is as if he had said, " I'll lay aside my electric oper- 
ations and hide my book 'till the time is ripe for their 
revealing," and that he has succeeded in so doing, until 
now, is a matter of fact. 

But he tells us " The queen shall have her say or the 
blank verse shall halt for it." So, therefore, as we have his 
" cue," the depths shall be sounded, his book shall come 
forth, and Bacon shall be interpreted, or this blank'd prose 
go lame to the end of time ! 

Has the reader ever considered how suggestive the title 
of the play of " Ilam-let " is ? As a floweret is a little flower, 
so by the same rule a "Ham-let" is a little ham; and all 
the world knows that ham is near akin to Bacon ! And, 
therefore, as Bacon is the father of Hamlet, so the ghost of 
Hamlet's father is the ghost of Bacon, i. 6., Bacon himself ; 
and whatever the "Ghost" says, is none other than the 
words of Bacon. And hereby hangs, not only t\\Q point of 
this story, but the tale itself ! 

And when he tells you " he could to you a tale unfold," he 
is but telling you an unvarnished truth, but it was " forbid- 
den unto him to reveal the secrets of the prison house," 
simply because the fullness of time had not yet come ! 

It might be urged by the admirers of Shakspeare that 



MYSTEEY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 85 

the reason why there are so many parallel ideas in the 
works quoted herein, is, that Bacon might have been a great 
lover of the drama, and often attended the plays, and there- 
fore was enabled to pick up the fine points of wit and 
wisdom as they dropped from the eaves of the stage, so to 
speak ! But when we consider the fact that his essays, and 
Ad. Learning, from which I have made the greater part of 
my selections, were published long before most of the plays 
came out, this objection vanishes into thin air ; unless, 
indeed, we take the other horn of the dilemma, and suppose 
that Shakspeare was a great reader of Bacon, and stood 
ready to appropriate everything of note as soon as it was 
produced ! What a relish he had for Bacon, to be sure ! 

It has ever been a subject of great wonderment with 
many of the readers and admirers of " Shakspeare," that 
there should be such a vast collection of the best, and the 
worst, the highest and the lowest, the most God-like and 
the most devilish, in one volume and written by the same 
hand. 

But this is accounted for in the expression used by Bacon, 
" I have taken all knowledge to my province ; " and he was 
therefore obliged to include all — the highest and the lowest, 
in order to compass all humanity, as well as the heights and 
depths of nature. Yet, occupying the position in the gov- 
ernment, and in society, which he did, it was policy — speak- 
ing in a business way — for him to act under cover ; and as 
he found Shakspeare — and others — willing for a considera- 
tion, he had him in the literary harness, and drove him 
whithersoever he would. 

Sometimes through the fields where Adonis did roam, — 

Or the vales w^here Yen us did dwell ; 
Sometimes " like mad through the gates of Rome," 

And anon, through the gates of hell ! 



B6 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

What he thought of tlie uses of remuneration, may be 
learned in Love's Labor Lost, Act 3, Scene 1 : "Remun- 
eration ! why, it is a fairer name than ' French Crown ; ' 
I will never buy or sell out of this word." And as Costard 
says, in this scene, " O marry me to one ' Francis,' I smell 
some L'Envoy — some goose in this — " we see where Francis 
Bacon is hiding himself. 

Again we have in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2 : 

Hamlet. "For thou dost know, O Damon dear 
This realm dismantled was 
Of Jove himself ; and now reigns here 
A very, very, peacock." 

Horatio. " You iriight have rhymed.^'' 

Hainlet. O, good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for 
a thousand pound. Did'st perceive? 

The meaning of all this is that young Hamlet is trying, 
in a roundabout way, to make plain how his father has 
been bereft of his rights, but slyly mentions the " thousand 
pounds " as a j^ointer. The literary Jove — Bacon — is 
deprived of his realm by a very, very — something that 
rhymes with " was " — but is incontinently dubbed a pea- 
cock ! And he gives you the " ghost^s word for it." 

This remuneration business is finely brought out in 
Henry the Fourth, Act 2, Scene 4. Prince Henry asks his 
servant how much sugar he gave him — " if it was a penny- 
worth f — and then adds : " I will give thee a thousand 
pound for it ; ask me when thou wilt and thou shalt have 
it." 

Now, we perceive that the prince is giving his servant a 
" Thousand pound for a mere nothing ;" so, also, we 
remember that Shakspeare received about these days a 
present of one thousand pounds ; putting that and that 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 87 

together, we need not the services of an authorized "weather 
bureau " to tell us which way the wind blows ! 

There is another matter alluded to in this scene, which, 
when examined with the eyes open, will prove of great 
signincauce, tlie fact of the calling of " Francis " — Bacon's 
name — some eleven times, and the situation so arranged 
that the servant shall answer continually, " Anon, anon ;" 
this, you are told, is a " precedent," and means that " Fran- 
cis" may not come to-day or to-morrow or next week, 
but that he will come some time ! At the beginning of 
this colloquy we see this expression used — and 'tis a key to 
what follows — " Look down into the pomegranate, Kalph !" 
This is an arbitrary name applied to him who should dis- 
cover the truth, and is a reminder to him that after he has 
found the meaning he must look well down into the fridt 
of tT\ith and find the hernel thereof ! " Dost perceive ?" 

And now I think I have shown how he was in the liter- 
ary liarness, and what tlie amount of the " remuneration," 
and if it seem a little ungrateful on my part, I say, simply, 

I'll never spoil a story for a namesake's sake ! 

Now, as we have indulged in much that might properly 
be called tragedy, let us vary, somewhat, and introduce a 
little more comedy by way of variety. 

Mr. Bacon very slyly remarks that " men are not used to 
bring in a comedy before a tragedy," and " 'tis not best to 
stay too long in the theater," and like expressions. You 
see, he desires to keep it before the reader that he is inter- 
ested therein^ and knows all about it. Let us, then, turn to 
his Apothegms, where we will find such a collection of wit 
and jest as may be found nowhere else, and which consti- 
tuted his hanh of fun upon which he drew for the wit and 
jokes with which the plays abound. A perusal of these 



88 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

apothegms will disclose the fact that Mr. Bacon was liand- 
in-glove with both Queen Elizabeth and King James, and 
that his was the brain of both reigns ! I give a few sam- 
ples : 

One day Queen Elizabeth told Mr. Bacon that my Lord 
of Essex, after great protestation of penitence and affec- 
tion, fell in the end upon the suit of renewing of his farm 
of sweet wines. He answered : "I read that in nature 
there be two kinds of motions, or appetites, in sympathy ; 
the one as of iron to the adamant, for perfection ; the other 
as of the vine to the stake, for sustentation ; that her 
majesty was one, and his suit the other." 

Soon after the death of a great officer, who was judged 
no advancer of the king's matters, the king said to his 
solicitor. Bacon, who was his kinsman, " Now tell me truly, 
-svhat say you of your cousin that is gone ?■ ' 

Mr. Bacon answered : " Sir, since your majesty doth 
charge me, I'll e'en deal plainly with you, and give you 
such a character of him as if I were to write his story. I 
do think he was no fit counselor to make your affairs bet- 
ter, but yet, he was fit to have kept them from growing 
worse." 

The king said, '' On my so'l, man, in the first thou 
speakest like a true man, and in the latter like a kins- 
man." 

When Mr. Attorney Coke, in the Exchequer, gave high 
words to Sir Francis Bacon, and stood much upon his 
higher place. Sir Francis said to him, "Mr. Attorney, the 
less you speak of your own greatness the more I shall think 
of it ; and the more the less." And it was not every 
" limb of the law" who could pick up Coke, after he was 
warmed up, without burning his fingers ! Mayhap Mr. 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 89 

Bacon had, in his mind's eye, an inkling of the modern 
process of steel-making, and concluded that ofttimes a large 
quantity of CokewoiM be consumed in producing a limited 
amount of steal ! 

Sir Francis Bacon, who was always for moderate counsels, 
when one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church 
of England as would in effect make it no Church, thus said 
to him : " Sir, the subject you speak of is tlie eye of 
England ; and if there be a speck or two in the eye, we 
endeavor to take them off; but he were a strange oculist 
who would pull out the eye." 

I give the following apothegm — 'No. 32, 1st collection — 
for the benefit of tlie legal fraternity, who will best appre- 
ciate the same, and understand the true significance of its 
counterpart to be found in Henry the Fifth : 

" There was a French gentleman speaking with an 
English of tlie law Salique — that women were excluded 
from inheriting the crown of France. The English said : 
' Yes, but that was meant of tlie women themselves, not of 
such males as claimed by women.' The French gentleman 
said : ' Where do you find that gloss V The English 
answered : ' I'll tell you, sir ; look on the hack side of the 
record of the law Salique, and there you shall find it 
indorsed ;' " implying there was 7io stick thing as the law 
Salique, but that it is a mere fiction. 

JSTow, in Henry the Fifth, Act 1, Scene 2, we find the 
king inquiring of the Archbishop of Canterbury in regard 
to his right to the throne of France being affected by the 
Salique law, as it was claimed by the French, viz.: 

" No woman shall succeed in Salique land." 

The Archbishop assures him that there is no bar to make 
against his highness' claim to France ; and that the " Salique 



90 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

land," which the French unjustly gloze to be the realm of 
France, lies in Germany ! The whole is a masterly and 
complete argument, showing the writer to be perfectly 
familiar not only with the legal bearing of the case, but 
with the genealogies of the different lines of the royal 
families for many venerations. The reader will do well to 
peruse the argument in question, for he will be well repaid 
for so doing. 

We smell some " Francis" hereabouts — seems to be bound 
in legal calf. This must have been the kind of a calf that 
" our Shakspeare" is said to have " kill'd in high style and 
made a speach." 'Tis a very likely tale^ truly, and seems to 
hang well^ from our point of observation. 

Before leaving these apothegms, it will be in order to pay 
special attention to the one that, evidently, was placed as a 
key to the collection. I refer to I^o. 36, 1st collection, 
where we find the Bacon family joke — the same that we 
find brought out to perfection in " Merry Wives of Wind- 
sor." It is as follows, and speaks for itself : 

'' Sir ]^icholas Bacon, being appointed a judge for the 
Northern circuit, and having brought his trials that came 
before him to such a pass, as the passing of sentence on 
malefactors, he was, by one of them, mightily importuned 
for to save his life ; which, when nothing that he said did 
avail, he at length desired his mercy on account of kindred. 
' Prithie,' said my lord judge, ' how came that in V ' Why, 
if it please you, my lord, your name is Bacon, and mine is 
Hog, and in all ages Hog and Bacon have been so near kin- 
dred that they cannot be separated.' 'Aye, but,' replied 
Judge Bacon, ^you and I cannot be kindred except yon be 
hanged ; for Hog is not Bacon until it be well hanged !' " 

This joke is ^o practical it fairly hristles. 
Now we will turn to the play of " Merry Wives of Wind- 
sor," Act 4, Scene 1. Here we have a boy named " Wil- 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 91 

Ham " who is being instructed in Latin, by his teacher, and 
the boy's mother is assisting, though from the situation, one 
would naturally conclude that she needed to be tauglit as 
well. The teacher has finally succeeded in overcoming the 
boy's natural ability for blundering, and has taught him to 
repeat the phrase " Accusitivo, hing, hang, hog : " the boy's 
mother, who isn't supposed to know Latin from leather, 
immediately volunteers the translation of the last two 
words, and says, " ' hang hog ' is Latin for bacon, I'll war- 
rant you." 

As Mr. Donnelly has shown this word bacon was spelled 
in the original edition with a big " B," and therefore, with- 
out doubt this joke was placed here as another of those 
" Key Ciphers," by him wlio was the greatest cipherer of 
all, " whereof the memory remaineth." But Mr. Donnelly 
has neglected to give us a translation of the first part of the 
sentence, which is put into the mouth of William, " Accu- 
sitivo hing." If "hang-hog" is intended for Bacon, as it 
is so declared, then by a fair rule of interpretation William 
is made to stand up and say in effect, " I declare this matter 
hinges on the name of BaconP And the fact that the boy, 
William — Shakspeare's name — is the dunce who knows 
"little Latin, and less Greek," is no small part of the joke 
by any means. 

Now can any thinking person, with these facts before 
them, bring themselves to believe that Shakspeare would 
thus take up the Bacon family joke, which was perpetrated 
years before he came to London, and sandwich it into a 
play at his own expense, and thus place himself on the 
dunce block ? Hardly. 

We will take leave of this part of the inquiry by giving 
the " summing up," as Mr. Bacon has put it, at the conclu- 



92 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

sion of his first column of apothegms, two hundred and 
ninety-five in number, and which he gave at one sitting^ 
without " turning any book," ^. e.^ from his memory. He 
covertly adds this : " Come now, all is well ; they say he 
is not a wise man that will lose his friend for his wit, but he 
is less a wise man that will lose his friend for another man's 
wit." 

We see in this that he had no desire in his day to be 
known as a play writer, and so lose his friends at court 
where he stood high, and who would have been mortally 
offended at many things in the plays, had they have known 
him as the author of them. 

Yet he foresaw that the time would inevitably come when 
he who had profited by " another man's wit " would lose 
his friends, ^. 6., the praise of posterity, when the facts 
should become known. 

So much for comedy. Now we will present a farce 
whose equal has never been shown to a gullible jDublic ! 
My readers who are so fortunate as to have a complete 
copy of the illustrated edition of 1623, will please notice 
particularly the illustrations on the cover of the same. On 
the back is a bust of Shakspeare in a very odd style of 
dress, with a collar the very opposite from the gentleman's 
style of that day. There ai'e, also, two womanly figures on 
either hand, representing comedy and tragedy, respectively. 
A close inspection of the same will disclose the fact that 
the lady of tragedy is not grasping her dagger firmly, as 
she ought, but that the hand is partly open, with the fore- 
finger pointing directly at the bust above her. It will be 
noticed, also, that this lady wears a look of profound scorn 
rather than of defiance. Then, too, on the cover, they will 
see a large pedestal, upon which stands a small figure of the 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 93 

same individual whose bust is on the back of the book, and 
at which the open-handed lady of tragedy is pointing the 
finger of scorn. There is, also, a second pedestal on the 
top of the large one, upon which the little man is leaning. 
The base of the pedestal is surrounded by a mass of theat- 
rical rubbish ; and on either hand are two more womanly 
figures representing music and poetry. 

JSTow let the reader examine these illustrations with an 
artistic eye, giving due consideration to proportion and 
elevation, and noting the frieze under the capital. 

It appears to be about once and a half the height of an 
ordinary person, and you are looking upward at, and under, 
the capital, but strange to say, you see the surface upon 
which the little figure is standing ; and that instead of 
being in the centre of the top of the pedestal, he is placed 
with his toes at the very edge thereof, consequently he is 
standing ujpon an incline of about forty-Jive degrees^ more 
or less ; a position more odd than honorable, one would 
think. 

And we desire to add, in passing, that this ilhistration 
will bear inspection with a lens, and will prove to be not 
only a piece of artistic excellence, but the standing joke of 
the world ! 

Kow let us see if we can find in Mr. Bacon's works 
anything that will tlirow light upon these illustrations. 
Mr. Bacon has kindly volunteered his opinion in one place, 
that "fulsome praise is the very essence of iron3\" And 
in apothegm number two of tlie collection which lie says 
"was first published in the remains," we find this : 

Plutarch said of men of weak abilities set in great place : 
" That tliey were like little statues set on great hases, made 
to ajpjpear the less by their advancement ! 



94 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

How, or where, could a selection be made that would 
give a clearer exposition of the meaning of these illustrations 
on the cover of this volume, wherein the open handed 
figure of tragedy is pointing the linger of scorn at the 
"little man" on the "great base?" Ah, now we begin to 
the beauty of Bacon's statement in regard to "high place" : 
" The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a down- 
fall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing." 
Surely the reader will, by this time, begin to see that 
Bacon, like "poor Yorick" was a fellow of infinite zest 
and merriment ; for no selection of wit or illustration could 
better disclose the situation, judging from Mr. Bacon's 
standpoint. And in this connection I feel constrained to 
ask, where have the wits of the world been " wool gather- 
ing" for these two and a half centuries? 

Mr. Bacon tells us at the conclusion of his book, Advance- 
ment of Learning, " Thus have I made, as it were, a small 
globe of the intellectual world, as truly as I could dis- 
cover; " and he further says, " For in anything that is well 
set down, I am in good hope that, if the first reading move 
on objection, the second will make an answer." And he 
modestly adds : " I have tuned the instrument of the muses 
that they may play who have better hands." 

But as I have endeavored to show in these humble pages, 
he has bequeathed to us an intricate piece of music, along 
with the instrument, the same I have endeavored to decipher 
with such success as the reader must determine, but in 
looking back over my own work, it seems to be no better 

"Than a tale that is told ! " 

But if I could succeed in giving him to the world as he 
is, I would not exchange honors with the greatest of earth's 



1 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 



95 



military heroes ; and yet I feel that I have but opened up 
the field, and pointed out the way in which others may 
follow, or go beyond, as they have more leisure and greater 
ability. 

"For our abilities are to be considered. My Lords!" 




PART III. 

RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSION. 

In reviewing the foregoing pages I reach the following 
conclusions : That bj the wording of the preface to this 
authentic edition of 1623 — of which I have made use of the 
Rev. William Harness' copy — I find that " our Shakspeare," 
as he is there called, was not the author; that his so-called 
friends received nothing from him ; that it was impossible 
that they should so receive anything, from the fact that one 
of them — Heminge — had heen dead ten years at the time 
of the publication of this volume ; and as they are made to 
declare, over their signatures, that he conceived the dash, or 
niimts, and they give you w^hat they received, it follows 
that they give you nothing in connection with this edition. 

This, I take it, settles the question of the " Shaksperian" 
authorship; and now remains that we ascertain if this 
inquiry has disclosed the fact of the '' Bacon" authorship of 
these plays and the publication of this disputed volume. 
We are informed in very legal fashion, that the plays "had 
their trial, and came forth acquitted by decree of court," 
etc., a phrase entirely fitting as coming from the pen of 
Judge Bacon. 

Then w^e read, in this same preface, that if, after a third 
reading, we cannot understand " Shakspeare," his other 
friends are able to be our guides ! 

Now, as Shakspeare wrote no other books by which we 
might judge of the merits and meaning of this one, we look 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 97 

in vain for the "guides;" unless, indeed, we go to the 
acknowledged w^orks of Bacon, which will, on careful 
perusal, most assuredly guide the reader to an understand- 
ing of this mysterious v^olume, as no one, or nothing else, 
can. 

Thus do we disclose to the reader the foundation of this 
plot, which deepens and thickens as we proceed ; and e'er 
we close we will see such a theatrical display as has never 
before been presented, and which will clearly demonstrate 
that 

"All the world's a stage ;" 

And that, although there are many actors, among which the 
fools and clowns " most do predominate," there has been 
but one king actor, and that was Bacon himself ! 

In setting his " springs to catch woodcocks," — " the seem- 
ing truth which cunning times put on to intrap the wisest" 

— he has placed this simple , as the horizontal bar over 

whicb the athletic critics have vaulted in succession, appar- 
ently vieing in lofty tumbling ! 

Even the renowned Dr. Johnson — that ponderous literary 
" East Indiaman" — imagined he was sailing grandly to 
windward the while he was drifting to leeward ! And 
Richard Grant White was a white gentleman and scholar, I 
grant, but in this instance, at least, "Richard was not him- 
self !" Even they failed to penetrate the armor of this wily 
author, and the latter gave to Shakspeare the credit of the 
authorship, the while he was impressed with a sense of his 
littleness as a man, judging from what we learn of him in 
his published life. 

And now I pass to a reconsideration of the known facts 
connected with the life of Shakspeare : That he was born in 
humble station, of parents whose means were very limited ; 



98 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

that he had from one to seven years' common schooling, 
which was finished at the age of fourteen, when most boys 
are beginning to learn ; was employed as an assistant in his 
father's business — butcher ; was married at the early age of 
eighteen ; that his business capacity did not save him from 
going " from bad to worse," financially ; and, finally, evi- 
dently thinking that any change would be for the better, 
we find him setting out for London, with poor prospects, 
and little or no calculation as to his future course. He 
seems to have drifted with the tide, and landed at the 
theatrical dock as near a wreck as any man may wish to 
come, for he not only had recourse to the most menial 
occupations, but there seems to be good reason for surmis- 
ing that he actually begged for something to appease tlie 
hungry wolf that ever follows the unfortunate. Yet in all 
this there was no disgrace, though much inconvenience, and 
but poor encouragement for the "greatest writer of all 
time." 

Let us hope that the proofs of the manner in which he 
obtained his start in theatrical life may yet be brought to 
light. 

We are given to understand that some of the best of the 
plays accredited to him actually appeared as soon as he 
arrived in London, or shortlj^ thereafter, and we may as 
safely assume that he brought them with him in his great- 
coat pocket, as that he ever composed them after his arrival. 

We see him going, almost at one bound, from the lowest 
round of the ladder of fame to the highest, and making 
more money in a given time than the best of the old actors, 
or even than most of the writers of his day! Query — How 
did he get on so fast except on account of remuneration for 
playing the pack-horse for a cunning master ? 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 99 

After his theatrical career was over, we see him going 
back to his humdrum life at Stratford, for which he was, 
by nature, most fitted, and for the enjoying of which he 
now had what was at that time considered ample means. 
Yet in this comparative seclusion we get nothing from him 
worth the paper on which it is printed, or which shows 
one-ten-thousandth part of the wit and wisdom contained in 
this volume of plays ! And yet he was now in the prime 
of life, and this three years of his time spent at home after 
his theater-life was over — from forty-nine to fifty-two — 
ought in all reason to ]iave furnished us with something 
worthy to be remembered. But we look in vain for even a 
scrap. Yerily, as like produces like, so naught produces 
naught, and thus we have a solution of the mystery ! 

As we have shown, the admirers of Shakspeare aftirm his 
autliorship of the plays without furnishing the proof, thus 
taking it for granted, and throwing tlie burden of proof 
upon the negative side ? Hardly fair, is it ! 

And on the score of "genius" I have only to say further, 
tliat nature may abhor a vacuum^ but she will require some- 
thing more substantial than genius with which to fill it ! 

We have shown that the writer of this volume had all 
the learning of the world at his tongue's end, and the fine 
points of wit at the point of his pen. He had the qualities 
of a great statesman joined to the embodiment of judicial 
loi*e. In a word he was 

" The choice and master spirit of his age.". 

Does " our Shakspeare " fill the bill ? 

As for those so-called friends of his who are supposed to 
have collected and published this magnificent volume, I 
have not only shown that it was utterly impossible for them 
to do so — except on the hypothesis that one of them liad 



100 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

turned Printer'' s Devil after *^ shuffling off this mortal coil," 
but that even if still in the flesh, they had not a modicum 
of the sense and judgment necessary to enable them to 
accomplish such an undertaking, and that without means, 
i. 6., they passed round the hat to pay for the same ! And 
then, too, let the reader consider that, as we have shown, the 
MSS. must liave laid around loose for seven or eight years, 
until these two boors took it into their heads to gather 
them up ! 

The following plays were not published until this players' 
edition came out in 1623, and they comprise two-thirds of 
the whole number of plays in the main collection ; so we 
see that some one must have kept a literary store-house, 
during these seven years, and yet never thought of publish- 
ing until these ignoramuses proposed to do it in Ms honor: 
Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Yerona, Merry "Wives of 
Windsor, Twelfth Night or What You Will, Measure for 
Measure, As You Like It, Winter's Tale, Comedy of Errors, 
Macbeth, All's Well That Ends Well, King John, Henry 
YI., Henry YHI., Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Julius 
Csesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline ; and these were 
preserved through all these years, intact, and without special 
care on the part of the real writer! Oh, 'tis astonishing 
that such an operation should have received credence at the 
hands of the literary world, up to this day of grace, in the lat- 
ter part of this boasted nineteenth century ! And it is much 
more astonishing that he who wrote the doggerel verses, at 
the expense of Sir Thomas Lucy, should be accredited with 
the production of that grand poem, " Yenus and Adonis," 
as his first serious undertaking! Yerily, the gullibility of 
mankind " is uast all understanding:." 

When this matter is thoroughly investigated, it will be 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 101 

known liow and why Shakspeare received one thousand 
pounds as a present about this time. 

I pass now to the more agreeable task of reviewing briefly 
the salient points in the life and times of the real author 
of this volume, Sir Francis Bacon. 

It is clear, from his well known life, that he inherited 
great natural faculties, and was htted by study and practice, 
and by philosophical experiment, to fill any position within 
his reach; and his acknowledged works — aside from this 
volume — show him to have been the peer of any writer of 
his day, and including this book, the king writer of all time 
— the literary Csesar ! 

If he follows a quMle, as Dr. Johnson says, he is showing 
you what he knows of the lawyer's ability to- tell hoth sides 
of a story, and not tell either in such manner as to render 
himself liable ! If he tells you to what extent memory can 
be trained, or if he wields his poetical scalpel to dissect the 
nine muses before your eyes, he but shows you what he 
coidd do if lie tidied ! If he puffs King James to the skies, 
calling him a mortal god on earth, he also flays him alive 
with his " essence of irony " — fulsome praise ! If he shows 
you clearly, the operation of electric force, he but tells you 
that he has grasped this " all power," and wields it as a 
plaything in his hands ! If he explains to you how 
" cipher " writing may be employed to advantage, he but 
hints at the extensive use he has made of it in his works. 
And as I have heretofore shown how " Cipher Keys " have 
been placed here and there in the plays, I will now disclose 
the continuous cipher which connects all the plays in this 
hoolc, with the single exception of the " Yorkshire Trag- 
edy," which is one play in ten scenes, and has its special 
meaning. 



102 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

You will observe that he expressly states in his book, 
Ad. Learning, that the highest degree of " cipher-writing" 
is to write omnia per omnia, the writing infolding to be in 
quintuple proportion to the writing infolded, and no other 
restraint whatsoever. He has given us the best possible 
demonstration of this in the following : There are thirty- 
five plays in the main collection and six in the supplement, 
each and every one consisting of five acts ! The one play 
in the five acts — " only this and nothing more." Here, 
then, we have the whole volume arranged in this quintuple 
proportion. 

Now, when we rjemember that some of these plays are dis- 
puted by the admirers of Shakspeare, and others are said to 
have been the work of several hands, and that still others were 
corrected and anginented, does it not seem passing strange 
that we should find the same regular order of arrangement, 
and that, too, in perfect accord with Bacon's idea of the 
highest degree of cipher — quintuple proportion — " and no 
other restraint %ohatsoever V 

Arise and sing, from " Love's Labor Lost," Act 3, Scene 
1 — tune, Pleyel's Hymn : 

" The fox, the ape and the humble-bee 
Were still at odds, being but three ; 
Until the goose came out of the door 
And stay'd the odds by adding four." 

The fox is Bacon, the ape is King James, the humble- 
bee is EHzabeth, the queen bee, and the curious reader can 
ascertain who represents the goose by gazing for the space 
of five minutes into any ordinary mirror ! See — la ? 

If the placing of the Bacon family joke in the plays is 
not in itself sufticient evidence, he has given us a series of 
parallel passages, such as can be found nowhere else in all 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 103 

literature, and which becomes unimpeachable evidence as 
to the fact of the authorship of this volume of plays rest- 
ing with him. 

And, if it be objected that he is using dissimulation in 
all this, why, he tells you plainly that " if a man would be 
secret, he must in some sort be a dissembler," and shows us 
that his model great man — Caesar — " was the greatest dis- 
sembler." So, therefore, he himself is acting the part of 
the great of all time, and he doesn't stop at this, for he is 
still engaged in the greatest piece of acting ever done in 
the world, as illustrated in his statue^ of which more anon. 

He gives us a concise idea of his ways and purposes in 
Henry Fourth, Act 1, Scene 2 : 

" Yet herein will I imitate the sun ; 
Who doth permit the base, contagious clouds 
To smother up his beauty from the world. 
That when he please again to be himself, 
Being wanted, lie may be more wonder'd at, 
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists 
Of vapors, that did seem to strangle him. 
If all the year were playing holidays. 
To sport would be as tedious as to work ; 
But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come. 
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. 
So, when this loose behavior I throw off. 
And pay the debt I never promised, 
By how much better than my word I am, 
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes ; 
And, like briglit metal on a sullen ground. 
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault. 
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes. 
Than that which hath no foil to set it off. 
I'll so offend, to make offense a skill ; 
Redeeming time, when men least think I will." 

That Mr. Bacon uses words with a double or triple 
meaning is "a thing to be remembered." For instance, in 



104 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

the play of the Tempest, where we find the very expressive 
expression, "Hell is empt}^, all the devils are here," he is 
but stating the plain fact that hell is a myth, as far as 
futicre place is concerned, but that the devils are wicked 
men right in our midst ! In one place in his works he says, 
"For the sword is a monstrous thing to put into the hands 
of the common peoj^le I " His 'meaning is, that it is a 
monstrous good thing, when they have become sufficiently 
enlightened to be able to wield it without severing their 
own ears ! 

When he alludes to the fact that deity often uses the 
least of things in the accomplishment of the greatest 
objects, "hanging the greatest things on the smallest wires," 
he hints at the use he himself has made of the " greatest 
things" — batteries — attached to the "smallest wires," and 
which he has found by experiment to be capable of pro- 
ducing the greatest results ! 

In his allusions to the " Salique Law," where he dis- 
plays consummate skill and deep knowledge of the facts of 
the case, he shows himself to be an adept in the tracing of 
genealogies as well, "a thing to be remembered" by some 
of the " old families " of England ! 

If I were a learned judge, an able counseloi', a cute 
attorney, or even a pettifogging mutilator of Blackstone and 
Coke, I might, perhaps, give the legal bearing of these 
citations, but I content myself with simply calling attention 
thereto. 

Does not Mr. Bacon say of Csesar that he lost his life 
through friendship!: Yet, as we plainly see, he shows him 
to have been a perfect embodiment of centralized power, 
and that liis friendship began and ended with himself ! 
Antony is made to say that he has "neither words nor 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 105 

worth," yet he " speaks right on " — he has no room for the 
words he has ! In Bacon's eulogy of Csesar he alhicles to 
the lively images (rhetorical wind) and the real passages 
and solid weight of matter ; in all this he is speaking with 
the forked tongue (double meaning), and there is much 
philosophy in it, if one can only " distil it out." Perhaps 
I ought to beg pardon for comparing him with Caesar, but 
that I dislike to spoil a story ! 

This inquiry seems to be developing some strange things, 
but we'll " tell the truth and shame the devil," or, indeed, 
if it shame some one other than " his majesty ! " 

We read that — 

" Truth is truth wherever found, 
On christian, or on pagan ground," 

and that "all truths agree ;" these are things to be equally 
well remembered. 

A very interesting article was published in one of our 
leading magazines for January, 1886, giving a circumstan- 
tial account of the finding of the oldest tombstone in 
America, near the Kappahannock river in Virginia, by the 
soldiers in 1862. This stone purports to have been erected 
to mark the resting place of one Dr. Edmond Helder, a 
R\Ec TioNER IN Physick. and Chyrurgery, etc. The 
correspondents who have labored with this stony fact con- 
clude that the last line in the inscription is intended for a 
puzzler. But the jpuzzle is in the third line, quoted above, 
and in the word that is meant for practitioner, and it is 
none other than our old friend the dash placed on the hias, 
i. e., at an angle of forty-five degrees, same as we see in 
the position of the little man's statue on the large pedestal ! 
The curious reader will please notice that the P K in 
practitioner is one letter — a P with a diagonal attachment 



106 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARK. 

to form the R, and the — comes next in order, making the 
best mixed-up word " in tlie Queen's English, je knaw ! '' 

The continuation of this interesting episode — so to speak 
— may be found in " All's Well that Ends Well," where the 
same "specialist'- doctor cures the King's infirmity; but 
to "find out the cause of this effect," will requires a more 
conv^enient season. 

I have heretofore alluded to the fact that it was a proper 
thing to " let a little more light into the jury-room." But, 
from time immemorial, it has been the custom to exclude 
it, lest perad venture the honest jury might find a verdict 
when they least expected to. But now, while his honor, 
the judge upon his bench, has his left eye closed in inno- 
cent slumber, and his right ditto elevated above this vale 
of tears, and gazing upon the vacant space between the 
stars, let ns open the jury-room door — just a crack — suffi- 
ciently to enable us to introduce a little new evidence, to 
the end that truth be brought to light and justice be done, 
even though the time-honored (?) customs of all the courts 
in Christendom suffer thereby ! But, before doing so, we 
desire to remark, how very strange it is that Mr. Bacon 
should always have Queen Elizabeth or King James at his 
elbow whenever he desired to illustrate a point, or point a 
joke ! I give his Apothegm JN^o. 1 : " Queen Elizabeth, 
the morrow after her coronation, it being the custom to 
release prisoners at the inauguration of a prince, went to 
the chapel, and in the great chamber one of her courtiers, 
who was well known to her, either out of his own motion, 
or by the instigation of a wiser man, presented her with a 
petition ; and, before a great number of courtiers, besought 
her with a loud voice, 'that now, this good time, there 
might be four or five principal prisoners more released, 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 107 

those were the four evangelists and tlie a2>ostle St. Paul^ 
who had been long shut up in an unknown tongue, as it 
were in a prison, so as thej^ could not converse with the 
common people.' The queen answered, very gravely, that 
it was best to inquire of tliem whether they would be 
released or no." 

Now, in October, 1885, a congress of the Prison Keform 
Association was held in Detroit, whose avowed purpose 
was to endeavor to lead the world in the direction of "deal- 
ing gently" with the prisoners, if not in " setting the cap- 
tives free." 

Lo! here is a prisoner who has been confined in his own 
works, an unknown (cipher) tongue, for two hundred and 
sixty years ; is it not about time his tongue was loosed, and 
the hidden truth brought to light, or, rather, his light 
brought to the truth ; for his was the true light — he was 
the light ! 

Let the readei* please pardon while I digress sufficiently 
to enable me to give the jury system a parting salute. Let 
us suppose a case. A poor wretch has been arrested for 
stealing a loaf of bread. He has been tried and convicted 
by a jury of his peers — twelve other thieves ! Now, let 
not the jury retire, but let the judge come down from his 
high place, lay his hand in a magisterial manner upon the 
head of each juryman, eying him sharply, and propound 
the usual question, " Guilty or not guilty ?" If they do 
not say guilty^ then indeed are we all liars ! Then let the 
judge place his hand upon his own head, eyeing himself the 
while, and ask the saine question / if he be an honest judge 
he will pronounce guilty^ sentence himself — and let the 
prisoner go ! 

In giving us his ideas on the subject of death, Mr. Bacon 



108 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

foreshadows the time when death will be considered one of 
our best friends, instead of the terrible enemy superstition 
has made of him. He, Death, will be overcome but not 
removed, and so it will transpire that there will be a " vic- 
tory over him " rather than a release from his necessary 
visits, and the " sting of death " — i. e.^ the fear thereof — 
will have vanished into thin air. 

I have endeavored to show you how Mr. Bacon has 
enacted the role of the great ones of all ages, and how, 
also, that he hides in his works in imitation of Deity, to the 
end that they who wish him may examine his works, and, 
in finding him^ learn to appreciate them. And, when they 
come to be appreciated, it will be found that his ultimate 
purpose is the annihilation of those three great bugbears 
of the human family, viz., mock-modesty, superstition, and 
the fear of death. 

If any there are who fear lest their " occupation will be 
gone," why, then, 

" Let the gall'd jades wince," 

and humanity go free. 

We find in this wonderful volume a monument of knowl- 
edge, whose stones were brought from the four winds of 
heaven ; whose base rests upon the solid granite of experi- 
ment and fact, and whose summit reaches to the highest 
point of reasonable hope and expectation. Upon the sur- 
face of this monument the real author has scrawled in 
ungainly characters the name of Shakspeare, while he has 
cut his own name deep into the marble thereof ! 

In his book. Ad. Learning, he has not only gathered the 
gems of the Latin tongue, and laid them as trophies at your 
feet, but he has balanced the intellectual world in the hol- 
low of his hand. 



MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 109 

His apothegms furnish us with a budget of fun, in which 
he has rolled the wit and wisdom of the ancient and modern 
worlds into one well-rounded lump, adding enough of his 
own to leaven it, and bowled it down the course of time 
(see Pollock's poetry) for the common benefit of his fellow 
men. 

In his scientific works he has — with more truth than 
poetry — fused the body of Nature in his crucible. Indeed, 
he has held the mirror so truly to E^ature that she has often 
blushed at the reflection of her own beauty. 

In his histories — aside from these plays — he has shown 
his power to cause the English kings to rise from the dead, 
pass in review before him, and ''fight their battles o'er 
again !" 

And he is yet able to 7'aise them, with a big H. 

In his Wisdom of the Ancients — the old boys, "ye knaw" 
— he has ransacked the graves of the ancient gods and 
brought them forth as puppets upon his fingers to do his 
bidding. 

Nay, more than this, he has shaken their shriveled car- 
casses till the dry bones rattled, thus showing them to be 
harmless and gentle as sucking doves when once thoroughly 
understood. And all other gods of like nature do but await 
treatment at the hands of some equally skillful physician. 

In ancient times — and, unfortunately, in modern times as 
well — it was considered a great honor to stand uncovered 
in the presence of kings. But Mr. Bacon has reversed this 
rule in that he sits upon his monument in Westminster 
Abbey, in the presence of England's most illustrious dead, 
with his hat on ! And to borrow an expression from the 
Hamlet-ian Ghost : " But that I am forbidden to tell the 
secrets of the prison-house," I could to you a tale unfold in 



110 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

connection therewith, but for the present I forbear ; let it 
suffice that he sits in the presence of kings, with his hat on ; 
and there he shall sit until this stone that the literary 
temple builders rejected shall become the head of the 
corner ! 

He has in his works illustrated or reproduced every fine 
point in literature, including the scriptures. In his history 
of the reign of Henry the Seventh, he has not only shown 
you where to look for the true authorship of the plays of 
the Henrys, but he has done vastly more than this : he has 
illustrated that part of the "revelation," as he terms it, 
where we read of the eight kings : ""And there are seven 
kings, five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come." 
The five that are come and gone — "fallen" — and the one 
that "is," make six, and the other that is "not yet come" 
makes seven ; then there is another, the eighth in number, 
but seventh in nmne — this makes the eifflit. These eiffht 
kings " Henry" represent the kings there mentioned ; and 
this seventh Henry, who has no play^ and consequently was 
" not yet come," fills the gap and makes the bow of the 
eight regal stars complete. '''They that have eyes to see^ let 
them see /" 




CONCLUSION. 



One conclusion in five points : '* quintuple proportion." 




The hand of '^ Ham " is the hand of the worker ; sustain 
it, and it will sustain you ! Do you see the points ? 



End of Book I. 




/4 



IVIECHANICAL SERIES, 




i 

1 



I "wield the corkscrew.— 5acc/iM.s. 



THE MYSTERY 



OF 



"SHAKSPEARE" 



REVEALED. 



SIR FRANCIS BACON 

THE REAL AUTHOR. 



I 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 

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